Abstract
We studied the discourse of the elderly in relation to age, mental status and daily physical activities in 218 cases. To clarify the content of discourse, we employed the discourse classification, which we originaly developed. The mental status was assessed by the Hasegawa Dementia Scale, and the activities of daily living (ADL) were employed by the Barthel Index. Furthermore, a new clinical scale for rating of mental status (NM scale) was employed to combine ADL and instrumental ADL (IADL), which includes activities such as shopping. As a result, we found that age does not correlate with discourse; however, the correlation coefficients for mental status and daily physical activities were both more than 0.7. Therefore, we have come to believe that a decrease in mental status and daily activities affects the content of discourse which becomes focussed on the past and is selfcentered. We also divided the discourse into temporal and spatial elements, and studied their relationship to discourse. The correlation coefficient was 0.75. For anyone involved in rehabilitation, knowing the contents of the patient's discourse is important not only to assess the mental status and the level of physical activities, but also to assess the quality of life (QOL) .
