Background: Toilet activity is performed every day with a physiological phenomenon so called “excretion”, which is highly necessary. In this study, we used Eye Mark Recorder, a gaze analyzer, to analyze eye movement of elderly people during toilet activities. In addition, we compared the results with those obtained from a preceding study regarding toilet activities in young people.
Result: The toilet activity was divided into three phases: until they sit down, while they are sitting on the bowl, and until they leave the room. Until they sat down and until they left the room, they were looking at the entire environment in the toilet. While they were sitting on the bowl, however, they were mostly looking forward. A similar tendency was observed in young people as well. Furthermore, retention time, degree of dependence on the lower gaze, rate of recognition, as well as an association between the time required for movement and the degree of dependence on the lower gaze were investigated. The elderly people were far more likely to gaze toward the floor compared to the young people.
Conclusions: The results showed which areas the subjects had to look at during 3 toilet-activity phases in order to understand the spatial relation. In toilet activities of the elderly, the rate of gaze toward the floor increased probably due to aging, posture and decreased balancing ability. We will need to further investigate associations between the subjects' age, posture, balancing ability and the gaze during the toilet activities.
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