Expectations are high for approaches that aim to reduce the costs of medical and nursing care for bed-ridden patients in an expanding aging population. This research aimed to clarify whether a characteristic relationship exists between daily physical activity and the physical ability and medical expenses of community-dwelling elderly where nursing care and illness prevention are approached in a progressive manner.
The study was carried out on community-dwelling elderly participating in the 2002 nursing care and illness prevention project in the Kitamimaki village of Nagano Prefecture, which has attracted attention for its achievement in nursing care and reduction of medical expenses. The participants were divided into an “active group” and a “non-active group” based on their replies to a questionnaire survey. An analysis was then performed by stratified paired matching to establish whether a relationship existed between physical activity and the physical ability and medical expenses of the past three years (51 cases) for 17 subjects (nine males, 76.7±7.4 years old, and eight females, 77.0±8.2 years old).
The result showed that many cases of markedly high medical expenses were associated with hospitalization, and that such cases of severe illness occurred regardless of whether patients belonged to the “active group” or “non-active group”.
On the other hand, medical expenses for outpatients tended to be higher in the “non-active group (450,414±253,273 yen)” than in the “active group (158,574±133,111 yen)”. In addition, cases with high medical expenses over a number of years were only found in the “non-active group,” which shows that non-active people tended to carry a heavier burden of daily medical expenses.
Although this research was limited by the small number of samples, it showed some relationship between physical activity and medical expenses. It indicated a need for further monitoring.
