The field of Health Welfare Support can be categorized into four areas : 1) the human support such as Home-Help and Visiting-Nurse, 2) the financial support such as pensions and medical expenses, 3) the technical support such as the use of equipment and house modification, and 4) the information support for an effective use of these relevant services. While the traditional Health Welfare Support system tend to place more weight on the human and the financial support, the rapid technological advancement have made us clear that the technical and the information support are equally important and deserve greater attention, considering the value of autonomy and independence for human being. Originally, the term "Welfare Equipment" first appeared in 1974 in our country. Its concept has been enlarged since then, and now it can be broadly defined as "the equipment aimed at compensating the decreased daily living functions of, and enhancing the well being of people with disabilities". The present paper analyzes a classification system of the "Welfare Equipment", the current situation of the equipment service delivery system, and the issue of an effective utilization of the equipment. It also discusses some future perspectives of the "Welfare Equipment", focusing on its technical support system within a framework of the Health Welfare Support towards the 21st century.

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The evaluation of the environmental stimulation has become more important now a days. Because many old support systems have been broken and mothers have strong need for social support. The Evaluation of Environmental Stimulation (EES) based on a parent-answered questionnaire focusing on such instruments as the Home Observation for the Measurement of the Environment. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the environmental stimulation about 18 months old children, comparing it with other scales, and to present the sample for practical usage. The subjects were 103 children who were brought to the public health center for compulsory health check-up. Caregivers were asked to fill out the EES, Rearing Attitude Test, and Prescreening Developmental Questionnaire, and observed their interaction with children. The results were as follows ; 1) The feature of the environmental stimulation for 18 months children are clarified by setting the subscales, 2) Some subscale score of EES correlated significantly to the Parent Attitude Scale, Prescreening Developmental Questionnaire, and Observed interaction, and subscales had of their own features depending on the similarity to those scales, 3) The data of EES was easily to utilize for practical situation. Further research must be done to establish a common base of evaluation between health and welfare.

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The purpose of this study was to identify effective countermeasures related to health and welfare planning for the elderly, to reduce health care expenditures. The study analyzed the relationship between health care cost per elderly person and 16 indexes related with medical supply conditions (the number of hospitals, the number of hospital beds and the number of doctors) and home based health care and home help service conditions for the aged (the number of days the services were used, the number of personnel engaged in the services and number of agencies providing the services) by multiple regression analysis. The analysis showed a positive correlation between the number of hospitals and the number of agencies providing day services per 100,000 elderly people and a negative correlation between the number of hospitals per 100,000 elderly people and the annual days of usage of visiting guidance per 100 elderly people. As a result of these, the study found that annual days of usage of visiting guidance is closely related to the reduction of health care expenditures. The multiple correlation coefficient using the three indexes (the number of hospitals, the number of agencies providing day service and days of usage of visiting guidance) between the prediction score and the actual health care expenditures was 0.789 (contribution = 0.622).

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his research aims to analysis of care burden score for families with bedridden elderly. Working from interviews, we took the 30 symptoms of fatigue (divided I , II, III group) outlined by the Japanese Association of Industrial Health and, using quantification theory I by Hayashi, analyzed the relation between these symptoms and the care providers physical, mental and financial condition as well as with the kind of care. Our results are as follows ; 1) Given that the number of complaint items listed when getting up did not differ significantly from the number registered when going to bed, and that the former was already high, we can conclude that the care providers show symptoms of chronic physical fatigue. 2) Occupation, physical condition, period of care, and willingness to continue were some of the categories that had an effect on the number of complaint items. 3) Using the T-Score to standardize the estimated number of complaint items, we found that, while the score for each group (divided I , II ,III group) studied was near the 50-point standard value, the differences were significant. These results indicate that it is possible to estimate the number of complaint items for individual care providers without having them fill out a questionnaire by working from scores for categories of physical, mental and financial condition, as well as for the content of care. By obtaining a T-Score consistent with the estimated number, we believe we can quantify the care burden experienced by individual providers.

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The purpose of the study was to investigate the present status of Health and Welfare Plan for the Elderly among all the municipal governments (N=78) in Okayama prefecture. Extensive interviews were conducted to each of the personnel responsible for the planning. With the 100% response rate, major results indicated that : 1) there was a considerable delay in programming the plan ; 2) almost 50% hired a consulting company for both investigating and programming the plan ; 3) a coordination between the government and the prefecture had an influence on the identity of the local government. Two of the major difficulties for enabling the plan were ; 1) setting the objective levels of the services, and 2) the number of staff responsible for the plan. Short-Stay was one of the "possible" programs in securing the plan, while Home-Help and Visiting-Nurse services were among the most frequently listed programs as "difficult". Securing the manpower and financial aids from the government were the two major needs in activating the plan.

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This paper aims to make clear the causes of biting behavior among nursery school young children and to propose the preventive measures. By examining and analyzing the occurring times, places, situations and motivations in 1181 cases, it has been shown that one of the causes of the behavior is overcrowding or dense population. 91 percent of the case appear in classrooms or other indoor places. This reminds us of "The Density Effect" in ecology. Therefore, in order to prevent children from this behavior, it is important to lessen the density. : Children must spend their time outdoors especially in the morning when 76 percent of the biting occur. Besides these "ecological" analysis, we are going to examine the immediate action of nurses against a biting child. 71 percent of nurse's actions are warning and scolding. Considering the cause of the biting behavior and the age of children, warning and scolding are not suitable and not expected. The only action expected is acceptance. Although nurses themselves seem to think of acceptance as preferable and expected, in critical situation of biting they do not accept the behavior of the child who has bitten. Therefore, we are forced to make a further inquiry. What is the acceptance that nurse thinks of?

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