What needed for home health care of the elderly in their residential environment.

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The aging of the population in Japan is accelerating markedly. A practical guideline for effective and efficient home health care suitable for Japanese elderly is awaited. The purposes of the present study is to define the desirable housing conditions and environment of residence for Japanese home health care system. We selected research members from medical nursing, architecture, and social welfare fields, because all of these fields are necessary for comprehensive research on this issue. Firstly, we performed a mail interview survey (subjects were 8,000 stratified random sample of urban elderly) to investigate the environmental factors affecting institutionalization. Secondly, we assessed the functions (muscle strength, walking speed, activity of daily living, instrumental activity of daily living, etc.) and environment of residence (housing equipment, arrangement of the rooms, social support networks, family functions, etc.) by visiting interview survey for further evaluation. Third … More ly, we followed up physical function of the disabled elderly after the housing reform. And the lastly, we analyzed social indices and health indices (including age-specific death rate by causes of death by municipalities: source data were approved by Japanese Statistics Bureau) in an overcrowded huge city, Tokyo. Based on each research result , members filly discussed on the problems from the perspective of environment of residence for healthy cities. In conclusion, the following 4 points were clarified as the recommendation. 1. Aid development of suitable equipments for the elderly, not only inside of the house but also in the public space is necessary. 2. For the severely disabled elderly, development of caregivers is essential (housing reform itself less contributed to the improvement of their function). 3. For the moderately disabled elderly, suitable advices for physical exercise and adequate provision for social resources including housing reform are indispensable. 4. Social support network, for efficient home health care works effectively, if the eidsting social resources were utilized flexibly. Less