Elderly livings has various problem under the condition of number of elderly becoming more large. The evaluation of Quality of Life in elderly living is the indispensable concept to promote planning and design for elderly living. This paper mention the present condition of the methods to evaluate QOL in Elderly living and discuss the future subjects.

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It is important that a dweller oneself evaluates his living environment and continues the improvement of his environment and his environmental sense, for his QOL. Caption Evaluation Method is an investigation method to get the evaluation of participants by taking a picture. Participants of the investigation take the photograph of an anxious matter and affix the Caption. Qualitative Caption data can be quantitatively analyzed by applying the Caption to the fixed form. On the other hand, this method causes "Effect of enlightenment" that improves the environmental sense of the participants. This effect can be used as environmental education, vocational training, forming consensus, and occupational therapy.

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With the aging of society and the spread of a universal design philosophy, knowledge of the mental and physiological characteristics of the elderly is indispensable in designing environments and consumer products that will increase their QOL. The knowledge of human characteristics alone, however, will not enable us successfully to realize such human-centered design. The most fundamental steps in the application of this design are not only to acquire the human characteristics data that are needed for the design, but also to translate these data into design values and to evaluate such values based on their usability. Viewing the matter from a physiological anthropological standpoint, this paper cites some design methods and usability assessment methods for upgrading the QOL of the aged.

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This paper organized research plan and survey methods on the current living conditions of the elderly in the residential facility. Then a study checks the validity of a survey that understands the change in the life of the severely frail elderly. The methods utilized were a behavioral tracking survey, a questionnaire survey and observation by actigram. The results are as follows: Sleep-wake rhythm is formed regularly by dispersing the time of ambulation for the certain duration in a day.

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Environmental improvements of old nursing homes are important for the elderly with dementia to improve their quality of life. Action research, which combines research with practice action, is one of processes of environmental improvement. On process of action research in nursing homes, observation research on behavior might be more effective than interview and questionnaire, because the elderly have cognitive impairments. And Active place-choice is behavior relating to quality of life, and included in place-trips. In observation research on place-trips, it is possible to use video camera to record sequential behavior. This paper introduces the observation research to analyze place-trips in a nursing home, and considers the method to evaluate active place-choice and quality of life.

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Due to the rapid increase of the elderly, many nursing homes have been constructed in recent decades in Japan. At the beginning, the primary focus was on the 'quantity', that is, to build as many nursing homes as possible. But people noticed that the environment was so poor that it was not appropriate for the elderly to live out their last days. Now, improving the 'quality' is the essential and urgent issue. So the environment is required to enhance QOL of the elderly. The planning should be based on the point of view of the elderly themselves. But it is difficult for them to answer the questionnaire and interview. This paper introduces the behavior tracking survey as a way to assess their needs.

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While it has been recognized to be more important for the QOL of the elderly that we understand their life reviews, we still don't know much about how the life reviews are related to places and what is the effective methods of evoking them. This paper focuses on "place related reminiscence" and argue how it was enhanced by showing photographs of familiar places. The authors conducted a series of interviews on 2 elderly subjects showing photographs of their familiar places. As a result, it was found that "wide type" photographs are more likely to evoke their place related memory than "zoom-up type" of photographs.

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By the use of an ultrasound apparatus, the subcutaneous fat and muscle thicknesses at the forearm, upper arm, thigh and abdomen were determined in 158 boys and 161 girls aged from 50 to 79 months. The girls showed significantly thicker subcutaneous fat than the boys at the upper arm posterior, abdomen and thigh posterior, but the muscle thickness at every site was similar between the two genders. While the muscle thicknesses at all sites except for the upper arm were significantly correlated to age in both the boys and girls, the subcutaneous fat thicknesses were not.

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In this study, the in vivo force-velocity relationship was estimated at the tendon level, comparing triceps brachii muscles (TB) with biceps brachii muscles (BB). Fifteen male students (21.2±1.4yr.) performed elbow flexion and extension using a modified Wilkie's ergometer with various loads as a % of isometric force (Fmax). In the tendon force-tendon velocity relationship between the muscles, TB showed significantly greater V' than BB (TB>BB) under the same relative loads. Also, the tendon force was greater TB than BB. These results suggest that tendon force-tendon velocity relationships in the flexor and extensor of the elbow may be to reflect more the architecture of skeletal muscles than the muscle fiber composition.

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To clarify the differences in the perception of color between two groups with different iris colors, we measured color discrimination ability by the 100 hue test under an illuminance of 500 or 30 lx in Caucassian females with blue-green irises and Mongoloid females with brown irises, and obtained the following results. The total deviation score at 30 lx did not significantly differ between the Caucasian and Mongoloid groups, but that at 500 lx was lower in the Mongoloid group, suggesting that color discrimination was easier at 500 lx in the Mongoloid group. In the Caucasian group, hue discrimination was more difficult in the region from green (G) to purplish blue (PB) compared with the Mongoloid group under an illuminance of 500 lx, and the spectral luminous efficiency decreased in the blue (B) region in the light condition. In both groups, color discrimination in the red (R) region was law at 30 lx, showing significant differences between 30 lx and 500 lx. In the Mongolian group, the discrimination ability in the blue (B) region was significantly lower at 30 lx than at 500 lx. Since color perception differed between the two groups with different iris colors, universal designs giving attention to differences in iris color are necessary.

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The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of red pepper injection and hyperoxic gas inhalation on the energy metabolism during an aerobic exercise. Twenty healthy university students volunteered in this study and performed 60-minute exercise (40% VO_2 max) starting 150 minutes after having a meal either with or without red pepper (0.1g/kg). The hyperoxic gas (30% O_2) was inhaled for 20 minutes after starting exercise. Oxygen consumption, respiratory change ratio (RER), heart rate, temperature of tympanic membrane, body surface temperature, and blood lactate were measured in this study. As the result, no statistically significant difference in both the oxygen uptake and RER was found among three conditions: the aerobic exercise alone, the aerobic exercise and the red pepper, and the aerobic exercise, the red pepper, and the hyperoxic gas. And also, there is no significant difference in the other measurements. It is therefore concluded that there are no combined effects of the aerobic exercise, intake of the amount of red pepper, and the hyperoxic gas inhalation on increasing the energy expenditure and promoting the lipid metabolism.

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The aim of this study is to understand the effect of horticultural therapy for Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). We had five subjects (two RA patients and two healthy subjects) to do gardening and RA exercises and compared the results. We used Profile of Mood States (POMS) to see the difference between the mood before and after the exercise for each subject. POMS scores for positive mood showed that the score after gardening exercise were higher than that of RA exercises. For negative mood, score after gardening exercises were lower than that of RA exercises. As a result, POMS scores suggested that doing gardening exercises rather than RA exercises are better in psychological ways. In addition, we analyzed the saliva cortisol density. By measuring the change of saliva cortisol concentration rate, we found that the change of its rate measured from gardening was smaller than the rate measured from RA exercise. Salivary cortisol concentration suggested that taking exercises by gardening are better than doing RA exercises for the patients from physical point.

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The mouth guard is considered as an essential part of equipment for athletes participating in the contact sports. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the influences of custom-made mouth guards on physical performance capacity in high school rugby players. Subjects were 21 rugby players aged between 15 and 17 years. To determine the influences of a mouth guard use, 9 items of the physical performance tests were performed to evaluate agility, flexibility, balance, anaerobic power, muscle strength, etc. Test values with and without a mouth guard were compared. The results showed that wearing a mouth guard has no significant effects on all physical performance tests. In conclusion, high school rugby players can use a custom-made mouth guard without positive and negative influences with significance on their physical performance capacities.

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