THE MECHANISM AND THE STRATEGIES BY WHICH ELDERLY WOMEN MAINTAIN THEIR HEALTH CARE AT HOME

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This study attempts to clarify the difference in life strategies of those elderly women who contrive to maintain their own health care. Two types of life-styles of elderly women, (a) living at home by themselves and, (b) living with family although in the daytime she is left alone-were analyzed by two methods, i) direct interviews and, ii) observing participants inductively. These analysis show that elderly women living at home cared for by the visiting nurses tend to play the role of the main person on their own lives and also to maintain their selfidentity, which can not be observed among elderly women living in the old-age nursery institute. Women living at home with family showed as much intimate feeling toward visiting nurses as toward family members, mainly in an effort to smooth their health care, which is named "parafamiliarized action". And as to the relations between mother and child, women living with family showed the behaviors to reproduce "the mother and infant relationships".