A Seminar, two special issues and fourteen study meetings have been held for three years since the Research Group on the Living Environment for the Elderly were established. Number of group member reached seventeen, it was able to discuss the living environment for the elderly from the various points of view based on the physiological anthropology. In this special issue, nine reports could be appeared mainly from the view point of environmental adaptation for the elderly.

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With the aging of society and the spread of a universal design philosophy, needs of the devices for disabled are diversified and researches of the assistive technology are increasing. Knowledge of the characteristics of the users with a variety of physical and mental handicaps is indispensable in the design of environments or products. A lot of new devices with design concepts based on such needs and technologies come into the world. The trend of researches and developments of assistive technology are reviewed and are discussed the future of devices for variable needs based on physiological anthropology.

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In this paper, the present states and problems of house adaptation for the person with disability are summarized aiming at the construction of the common idea of house adaptation. The purpose of house adaptation is to improve the life of the person with disability. After the enforcement of Long-term Care Insurance system, although the concern about house adaptation is increasing in generally, various problems such as handrails in the bathroom are not available etc. were pointed out at present. In order to solve these problems and perform suitable house adaptation, it is necessary to construct a house adaptation support system etc.

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The purpose of this paper is to discuss the adaptation to the light environment of the aged. It was examined from the influence of aging to the vision and physiological function, especially sleep-wake cycle. The visual needs of elderly have been investigated fairly in the past and are incorporated in the lighting recommendations for task illuminance, disturbing glare and the luminance distribution in the room. On the other hand, the daylight is an important factor for a healthy and energy efficient dwelling lighting has become widely accepted. Recently evidence for new receptors in the eye for these non-visual effects have been discovered. Human evolution took place under bright daylight but today people have to spend a major part of the day indoors, under for the non-visual effects, low lighting levels. The possibility that the aged who stopped going out becomes poor health in such lighting environment is high. Daylight and high level lighting can synchronize the biological clock, decrease affective disorders and, by direct brain stimulation increase alertness, well-being and performance. With the nowadays-available lamps, luminaries and lighting controls good lighting systems can be designed and most complaints can be prevented, but healthy lighting is more than good lighting; it fulfils both the visual and psycho-physiological needs of user. Healthy lighting includes daylight (dynamic, high vertical illuminance (on the eye)) and artificial lighting (when the daylight is insufficient, further from the window and to balance the luminance distribution) and good controls. Heretofore mainly, the physiological lighting research came for the purpose of the treatment of the sleep disorder. At present , the research examines the physiological influence of brightness level that is experienced with a daily life of the aged is expected.

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Both quality of nocturnal sleep and daytime arousal level in elderly people are ofter deteriorated and bright light has proven to affect them. Based on the concept of restorin;the normal circadian rhythm by bright light exposure, we introduce BRIGHT-CARE as a methoi to improve their sleep-wake rhythm and effective results of BRIGHT-CARE in three elderb care facilities. In addition, the tendency that it alleviated their sleep-wake disturbances, reduced their abnormal behavior and increased their eating amount is

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The purpose of this paper is to summarize the current status of improving the residential settings for the elderly and to discuss the future issues in the relating field. This study focuses on the importance of minimizing relocation shock that the elderly experience in the process of moving to a new facility and of the physical environment which facilitates adaptation to a new environment. Personalizing residents' rooms and planning common spaces which afford the various life patterns - this is the first endeavor seen in the improvement process at nursing homes. Spatial composi- tion in the smaller setting such as a GH is also introduced as another key factor in the process at the large facility. This paper also introduces "Group House AMAGASAKI" as the most leading case.

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The purpose of this paper is to describe a posture and motion for the elderly with disabilities from the viewpoint of ecological concept based on affordance theory by James J. Gibson. As their action is limited by disabilities, they can't perceive enough information which exists in environment. Therefore, they must accomplish through the thinking based on insufficient and wrong information. As a result, their posture and motion can't adapt to surrounding situation, it makes them to feel anxious and fearful. Further more, emotion such leads to limit spontaneous motion with searching. We should be related with the elderly with disabilities to woik on environment spontaneously for perceiving the relation between themselves and environment. We think that it is important for them to acquire flexible motion corresponding to environmental change.

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The purpose of this paper is to review the researches of environmental adaptation and neighborhood for the elderly and to make clear the concept of Environmental Health in the ecological approach based on the survey about futuristic examples of nursing homes. The environmental adaptation for the elderly to the neighborhood environment is the key for health in their living. Environmental assistance in ecological approach connected with behavioral supports and environmental coordination is effective for the elderly to adapt to newly environment and live in the health condition. Particularly., neighborhood environment should be kept small size for elderly to walk around by himself and multimode for the validity to make any kinds of outside activities of them.

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We studied the dietary life of the elderly from the viewpoint of food consumption pattern using a dietary questionnaire asking them their daily food consumption patterns as well as their dietary styles. This survey showed that elderly men who are living alone tend to consume less amounts of fruits than its recommended intake. In addition, men who usually take meals by themselves consume less dairy products, vegetables and fruits than the recommended intakes. In contrast, there is no relationship between the dietary styles and the food consumption pattern in elderly women. These results indicate that our advanced aged society needs to have more efficient nutritional education and dietary support for the elderly men to improve their quality of life.

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Several physiological parameters were examined at room temperatures (Ta) of 20°C and 24°C during a procedure of bed bathing with hot towels on the back. The subjects were 9 males and 10 females aged between 30 and 53 years. After 30 minutes of rest, a 40x32cm area of the back was covered with two wet towels at a surface temperature of 40°C; then the area was soaped; then again covered by wet towels at a surface temperature of 45°C and the soap was wiped off with a wet and subsequently with a dry towel. The back skin temperature (Ts) measured by thermography was elevated by 3°C during the first covering with hot towels, but recovered rapidly by 2.5°C during soaping. Ts level was significantly higher at 24°C than at 20°C. The difference between Ts at 24°C and that at 20°C was greater for females than for males. Thermal sensation localized to the back was significantly lower for females than for males. The generalized thermal sensation was significantly lowered in females after the soaping. Thermal comfort sensation was not altered during the procedure. The results indicate that a low Ta may affect to reduce the skin temperature and the thermal sensation more severely in females than in males during the bed bathing procedure. It was concluded that the gender difference should be considered when room temperature is being determined for bed bathing.

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To investigate the role of protective movements with regard to the head and hip during sideways falling, 40 healthy young males fell to the left onto a sports-mat from a standing position after application of force against the right side of the hip. All falls were recorded on videotapes and subsequently played back to analyze protective movements. During sideways falling, some protective movements were frequently observed. The appearance ratio of non-contact of head to the ground, indicating the extent of the head protection, was 60.5%. The non-contact of the head significantly correlated with rotation of the body and, the motion of the arm to touch the ground, but the first contact near the hip to the ground had no significant correlation with any protective movements. The most likely protective movements' pattern during the sideways falling was rotating to the abdominal position and flexing the body, and reaching the arm to the ground to protect the head during the fall.

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The purpose of this study was to examine the morale of older people living in local cities by comparing the relationships between morale and life-style factors in 4 groups classified according to gender and age-stages (young-old; under 75 years old and old-old; over 75 years old). Data were collected from 1,269 males and females aged 60 or more in the communities. A questionnaire consisted of a PGC morale scale and 16 life-style factors. Quantity theory I was used to evaluate the compounded contribution of 16 life-style factors (explanatory variables) to morale (dependent variable). Morale is higher in old-old females than males and young-old females. The contribution of life-style factors to morale is greater in old-old people than in young-old people. For old-old peoples, a relationship between morale and sleeping condition was found. For old-old people, many factors such as occupation, satisfaction with economic state, ADL, recognition of physical fitness or health, and exercise frequency, volunteer activity, a state of go out, the existence of best friends, and future plan or purpose relate to morale. The results suggest that the life-style factors relevant to morale differ between age-stages (young-old and old-old). Therefore, plans according to age-stages will be needed to improve old people's morale.

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Recent years have seen the development of video game machines in which players synchronize with music created by the machines. A typical example is one in which the player beats a drum according to a rhythm. This game machine then converts the operation and music into a synchronized score. However, when video and sound are given to a player simultaneously, the player s response is not clear. In an effort to solve this problem, we measure and investigate the response of the people given visual and auditory stimuli using equipment that imitates the game machine. In this paper, we measure and consider the effect when visual stimuli change at various velocities and the fluctuation of player response time. The results confirm that there is an optimal value for players at which the display speed of the visual stimuli changes. Furthermore, when the speed of change is not extremely low, there is no significant difference observed in the auditory stimulus. Moreover, when the speed of change in the visual stimuli is extremely slow, the accuracy of positioning greatly improves.

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Hyperuricemia is generally believed to be associated with life-style related diseases such as obesity, hypertension and hyperlipidemia. It is well known that aerobic exercise can help treat these diseases, though serum uric acid (SUA) is increased by exercise. The relationship between hyperuricemia and aerobic capacity, however, is not fully understood. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the SUA and maximal oxygen uptake (VO_2 max). One-thousand five-hundred healthy Japanese males partici-pated in this study. All subjects performed three stages of a submaximal exercise test for 12 minutes to estimate VO_2 max on a cycle ergometer. Mean age, height, body weight (BW), body mass index (BMI), and VO_2 max of the subjects were 49.4 ± 7.0 (± SD) years, 165.9 ± 5.0cm, 65.2 ± 7.7kg, 23.7 ± 2.5 and 31.8 ± 7.3ml/kg/min, respectively. The mean SUA concentration at rest was 5.9 ± 1.2mg/dl. Hyperuricemia ( SUA concentration > 7.0 mg/dl) was found in 275 subjects (18.3%). The SUA concentration was positively correlated with BW (r = .212), BMI (r = .254), serum triglyceride concentration (r = .255), and negatively correlated with serum HDL / total cholesterol concentration (r = -.205) ( all correlations were significant at p< .05). There was also a significant correlation between SUA and VO_2 max (p< .05), though the correlation coefficient was small in magnitude (r = -.107). Hyperuricemic subjects showed significantly lower VO2 max values than normouricemic subjects (30.6 vs 32.0ml/kg/min, p< .05). Multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that VO_2 max was not a significant predictor of hyperuricemia as demonstrated by an odds ratio of 1.08 (95% confidence interval: 0.79 - 1.47). These results suggest that hyperuricemia may result from hyperlipidemia due to inactive life-styles and excessive body weight rather than fitness levels per se.

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The aim of this study was to examine the effect of weight loading on heart rate in the daily life of university students. Ten male students, 20 to 23 years of age, volunteered to participate in the study. They spent two normal weekdays with or without 1 kg weights on each ankle. Their heart rate was measured during the 8 hours from approximately 8:00 to 16:00, using a portable wireless heart rate monitor that consisted of a transmitter and a receiver. At the same time, the number of steps was counted by a pedometer and each action was recorded. Mean heart rates, with and without weights, for the ten subjects were 79.0 and 78.1 beats/min, respectively. The differences of mean heart rate between the two testing days were not constant but varied with the individual that was tested. Additionally, there were many subjects whose heart rates scarcely exceeded 130 or even 100 beats/min during both days. The effect of weight loading on heart rate was insignificant under the condition of daily life, although treadmill walking with weights clearly increases the heart rate according to some literature. It seems that heavier weights (more than 1 kg/ankle) or more intensive physical activities would produce a more significant effect on the heart rate.

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The present study investigated the relationship between individual personality and physiological response, and whether there is a personality component to variations in physiological responses. Seventeen male subjects' (24.1±2.6 years old) trait anxiety, type A personality, and gender role personality were measured and matched to their changes in the cerebral blood flow during stimulus by a piece of chocolate. The results showed that the characterization of some groups with different cerebral blood flow changes could be explained by their personality traits. Through this, one way to approach the issue of physiological polymorphism was suggested.

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