High Level of Functional Capacity Assessed by Japan Science and Technology Agency Index of Competence among Community-Dwelling Older Adults in Japan: Findings from the ILSA-J integrated Cohort Study.

Abstract

Japan has rapidly become a super-aging society, resulting in a significant increase in average life expectancy.

According to the changes of the society, the functional capacity of older adult has improved significantly, and the number of vivid older people is increasing. The “Japan Science Technology Agency Index of Competence（JST-IC）is a recently developed to assess such higher functional capacity of the older adults.

In this study, we used data of JST-IC which have been collected in the “Integrated Longitudinal Study on Aging in Japan: ILSA-J” and evaluated the status of the functional capacity of the community-dwelling older people.

The average and standard deviation of JST-IC score were calculated by gender and age-group for the total score and the four subscales（social engagement, technology usage, information practice and life management）. As a result, gender differences were observed in all items except information practice, and significant differences were found between age groups in all items for both men and women, with scores decreasing with age. These data will shed light on some of the high level of functional capacity of the older people and will be a useful resource for future utilization of the JST-IC.