A Study on the Comfort of Living Environment for the Elderly

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This study was conducted to examine the comfortable condition of living environment for the elderly. Primarily, environmental elements concerning safety and amenity of daily lives were estimated through questionnaire survey to the elderly. Analysis of this survey revealed the serious problems for aged people in daily lives. Some problems among their environment including public space were pointed out. In addition, we conducted some surveys and experiments on the factor of visual, thermal and sound environment. Those are as follows.(1) Experiments were conducted to examine the visibilty of different floor levels from stumbling point of view. The height of different floor levels and illuminance had influence on the visibility of different floor levels. Especially, the elderly were easily influenced by them.(2) A survey of visibility of visual informations as information maps and guidance signs on underground streets was conducted. Further, using trancsparencies, we set out a questionnaire both to young and aging people. The visual informations should be to enable aging people to easily recognize them.(3) The influence of thermal environment inside and outside of rail-road cars to human beings was clarified. Temperature, relative humidity and air current were measured. Moreover, temperature of the tympanum and of the human skin surface at 4 points were examined. At the same time, the datum of thermal sensation were collected.(4) Experiments were conducted to compare the impact on severalparts of the body caused by the striking of the heel during human gait. The genarated acceleration at calcaneus varied with the difference of flooring.(5) The frequency of the noise in public facilities was analyzed to grasp the sound environment and improve their defects.