The purpose of this study is to develop a subjective hearing scale for elderly people. Our scale comprises seven items derived from daily life situations wherein elderly people are likely to experience hearing difficulties. A pure tone audiometer test was conducted, and the participants’ demographics, hearing aid use, disease, personality traits, affective well-being, mental health, and the subjective hearing scale were measured. By analyzing 186 participants aged 60 years and over, we confirmed that the scale has a one-factor structure and high internal consistency. A multi-analysis using the scale as a dependent variable showed that average hearing level, hearing aid use, extroversive trait, and negative well-being were significantly related to the scale. These findings suggest that this scale is more useful to identify the hearing difficulties that elderly people experience in actual life rather than to assess hearing ability. Further studies using this scale are required in order to examine the impact of hearing difficulties in the elderly on psycho-social factors among the elderly and their families.

  Aim : The present study developed the evaluation scale for helper coordination by home help service coordinators.

  Method : The evaluation scale mainly consisted of monitoring function and supervision function in the helper coordination. The cross-sectional survey with questionnaire was conducted with a sample of 167. The response rate was 67 %(n ＝112). The statistical analyses were conducted by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses.

  Result : The confirmatory factor analysis showed evidence of its construct validity. The developed scale was correlated with the criteria, such as burnout and job satisfaction, providing evidence of criterion-related validity. The scale had a good internal consistency of reliability(as＝.77 and .84).

  Conclusion : The reliability and validity of the scale consisted of monitoring function and supervision function as the constructs were confirmed. Future research should include additional factors in order to evaluate the comprehensive coordination functions.

  This study aims to clarify “the effects of home environment improvements” that indicate the standard criteria in home environment improvements for the elderly with dementia by analyzing descriptive statements of care managers in the Kanto regions. The care managers conducted a mailed survey in order to obtain the descriptive statements. We analyzed statements by the text-mining method.

  As a result, we found that seven effects of home environment improvements were extracted. They were “Life Vitalization,” “Cleanness in Physical Environments,” “Safety and Preventive Methods in Danger,” “Support Functional Abilities,” “Reductions in Caregiver’s Burden,” “Understandability,” “Calmness.”

  The objective of this study is to examine whether there is any association between family social support and depression status in elderly aged ≧ 70 years. The study participant comprised 223 males and 309 females (average age 76.2). Apart from demographic status, we inquired about family structure, social support, depression status, and physical and mental factors. We asked whether the social support they received was emotional or instrumental. Factors related to the occurrence of depression were set as a moderator variable, each social support as explanatory variables, depression occurrence as a response variable, and we then conducted logistic regression. The results showed that depression status had no relation with instrumental support. On the other hand, the risk of depression occurrence among those who receive less emotional support was significantly higher (OR=2.31,95% CI 1.16 - 4.60). Our study indicated that emotional support from the family had an important relation with depression in the elderly.

  The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between job satisfaction and the perceived difficulty of dementia care among professional caregivers working in nursing homes. Questionnaires were distributed to 1,266 professional caregivers, of which 576 valid questionnaires were analyzed. This study developed a causal relationship model assuming that caregivers’ perceived difficulty of dementia care affects their job satisfaction, and examined the fitness of the model to the data and the relationships between variables, using structural equation modeling. As a result of analysis, it was found that this causal relationship model fits the data and that there is a significantly negative relationship between the perceived difficulty of dementia care and job satisfaction. These results suggest that to enhance professional caregivers’ job satisfaction, it is necessary to provide education programs that enable individual caregivers to increase their self-efficacy. Given that only a limited number of caregivers in certain facilities were surveyed and that the contribution rate of job satisfaction was only 5.2% and the explanation rate of this model was low, further studies need to be conducted.

  This study examined the relationship between depressive symptoms and subsequent intellectual decline in Japanese elderly. Subjects (age=65-79 : n=805) comprised the first wave participants of the National Institute for Longevity Sciences-Longitudinal Study of Aging (NILS-LSA), and were tested 5 times and followed for about 8 years. Depressive symptoms at baseline were assessed using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale (CES-D), and intellectual changes for 8 years were assessed with the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised Short Forms (WAIS-R-SF), including its Information test, Similarities test, Picture Completion test and Digit Symbol test. General linear mixed model analyses revealed that depressive symptoms at the time of the baseline measurement had affected 8 year changes of ‘Information’, ‘Similarities’ and ‘Digit Symbol’ test scores. In contrast, depressive symptoms were not associated with subsequent decline in ‘Picture Completion’ test scores. These results suggest that depressive symptoms among elderly may cause decline in levels of general factual knowledge, logical abstract thinking and speed of information processing.

  This study examines the long-term effect of an intergenerational program with Senior Volunteer Picture Book Readers “REPRINTS” on junior high school students’ community activities in their junior high school days. Questionnaires were administered to 181 first-year junior high school students from Kawasaki City who were divided into two groups to investigate intergenerational effects. The “exchange experienced group” comprised 55 students who had participated in intergenerational exchanges through the REPRINTS program in elementary school. The “exchange non-experienced group” comprised 126 students who did not participate in these exchanges. Path analysis revealed that intergenerational exchanges have positive effects on students’ attitudes toward community activities, including familiarity with senior volunteers, interest in reading picture books, and views on elderly people. Furthermore, the effect was stronger for female students than it was for male students. These results suggest that to understand the effects on youths’ attitude toward community activities, it is important to consider affective and cognitive process such as their attributes, interests in the intergenerational program, and familiarity with senior volunteers.

  The global issue of association of social factors with health inequities has been emerging recently. Social factors are strongly related to healthy dietary habits as well as nutritional status and this study was conducted in order to clarify the association between social factors and nutrition information and knowledge. In the rapidly aging society in Japan, in order to prevent bed-ridden status and reduce health care costs, a key health issue is the promotion of a healthier diet for elderly people. This study aimed to analyze the association of social factors (i.e., economic status and educational level), diet/nutrition information, and dietary variety among 645 community-living older adults aged over 75 years. The results showed that there are significant associations between social factors, diet/nutrition information, and dietary variety. Multivariate logistic regression showed that participants who got diet/nutrition information from book/magazine and newspaper tended to eat more varied foods. Written health information may promote healthier diet among older adults. It is considered important to conduct further studies on appropriate health communication methods and tools for low socioeconomic groups.

  The malnutrition of the elderly weakens their immune function, which eventually causes the decline of their health status. Thus, the improvement in the malnutrition of the elderly is important in order to avoid their institutionalization or hospitalization.

  However, there is little knowledge about how the malnutrition of the elderly is managed by health and long-term care professionals, the elderly themselves and their families. Thus, this research examines problems in daily living support services to improve nutrition status for the elderly in communities.

  We interviewed doctors and staff of a Comprehensive Support Center, and the data were analyzed by the Grounded Theory Approach. The results indicated that the conditions of malnutrition among the elderly were often ignored by health and long-term care professionals as well as the elderly themselves and their families. Also, our result indicated the importance in recognition of the needs of daily living support services to improve nutrition by a Comprehensive Support Center in order to sustain elders’ condition. Thus, it is essential for family members and neighbors to provide the information about the elderly with malnutrition to Comprehensive Support Centers, which contribute to the nutritional support of the elders.

  This study focused on research carried out on monitoring sensors, and attempted to make clear the points clarified by the research. We searched for Japanese papers on “CiNii”and for English papers on “PubMed”, in order to extract from the search results studies related to monitoring sensors. We found 90 Japanese papers related to monitoring sensors. The first study was written in 1993, and the papers remarkably increased from 2002. The fields of the journals in which these papers were published ranged from medical science to engineering. The majority were in engineering research. We found 77 English papers related to monitoring sensors. The first of these studies was written in 1995, and the number of papers remarkably increased from the late 2000s. Most of the previous research had been reports of developments or mechanical functions of sensors. In a few examples of medical researches, the subjects and range of examination had been limited. There are still many issues concerning monitoring sensors which remain to be considered. It is necessary to examine effects in psychological aspects like subjective well-being and life satisfaction. in addition to ADL and IADL.