Background：It is expected that elderly people participate in social activity（SA）for prevention of functional disability. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the process and effects of SA that community-dwelling elderly people launched.

Method：The subjects of this study were elderly people living at urban area. The process of SA were analyzed intervention program by qualitative. To evaluate the effects, mail surveys were carried out before and after the intervention program.

Results：The elderly people living at the intervention area ran self-activity at this area gradually. At first, SA was run by elderly people with support of researcher. By little and little, elderly people have been able to run SA, through success of activity which is launched. And, general linear model showed effects of increasing frequency of SA and maintaining health related QOL at elderly which participated in SA.

Conclusion：SA that launched by community-dwelling elderly took hold at the area, by support over the time of researcher and administrative officer. And, this study suggested that elderly which participated in SA, that launched by community-dwelling elderly, maintain health related QOL.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the physical, psychological, and social factors involved in the perceptions of the elderly during heat stroke development. The sample consisted of eight elderly people（average age：78.0）previously diagnosed as heat stroke after the age of 65. Semi-structured interview was conducted to collect data. Based on the Modified Grounded Theory Approach analysis, four categories, five sub-categories, and eighteen concepts were identified. The central concept that “heat stroke developing slowly and unawares”, was found to affect the following two concepts such as “so far I’ve never developed heat stroke” or “dehydration during the night”. Psychological factors such as “unrelated” and “no intention to prevent” lead to “lack of knowledge and information”, which resulted in the concept “so far I’ve never developed heat stroke”. Psychological factors including “positive evaluation of natural breeze” and “air-condition is wasteful” affected the elderly’s behavior of sleeping without an air condition during the night. Social factors such as “hot and humid night even with the windows wide open” and “closed windows for security reasons” lead to “hot and humid bedroom” and “dehydration during the night”.

The purpose of the present study was to examine subjective well-being and the relating factors to it in the elderly living in the care facilities. An interview survey using a questionnaire including the revised Philadelphia Geriatric Center（PGC）Morale Scale as the measure of subjective well-being in 128 elders aged from 65 to 104 years living in seven care facilities. The score of PGC Morale Scale averaged 11.8 ± 3.93, which was similar to those reported in preceding studies dealing with the elderly living in the community. The multiple regression analysis for the present data revealed that self-rated health and feeling of being in connection with nature had significantly direct relationships to subjective well-being whereas feeling of being in connection with ascendants and descendants had a significantly inverse relationship to subjective well-being. The latter inverse relationship may result from attenuation of family relations in the subjects feeling of being in connection with ascendants and descendants.

With the aging of society, there is a necessity and trend of preparation for our own death. In Japan, this trend is called SHU-KATSU. One of the popular tools with SHU-KATSU is called ENDING-NOTE, which is a booklet to write one’s nonleagal will about aging and end. The purpose of this study is to examine the meaning of this preparation among the elderly who are proactive to prepare, and the influence on themselves. We collected data by interviews with 8 people who are preparing by ENDING-NOTE. The results show that their motivation is consideration of other people so as ‘not to cause people trouble’, not to make unusual requests that will cause problems for others. The influence of preparation are to know and organize one’s actual condition, and releases them from the anxiety about giving somebody trouble, not about death itself. Talking with people about death is a difficult matter; therefore, preparation is based on and rather promoted from this premise. Decision-making, particularly in medical care and caregiving, could become difficult by the substance of their future image of aging and end. This result suggests the subject how to support them to make their future image.

This article aims to show the political efficacy and political participations of older people in recent Japan, based on the data of 1,361 males and females aged 20 and over obtained from the mail survey for 3,000 adults selected by random sampling. Internal efficacy of the old generation is at the same level as the middle-aged generation and male and high educational background are strong predictors. However, external efficacy is remarkably low regardless of age, gender, area and socio-economic status. Analyses by structural equation modeling and multiple regression reveal that the strongest predictor of political participations is old age per se and internal efficacy shows mediated effect between socio-demographic predictors and political participations, although the effect was not strong. External efficacy is hardly related to political participations, but significantly related to only political discussion with family and friends. Political efficacy of older people is relatively higher than young and middle-aged generation. However, there are not many older people with high political efficacy and active political participations except voting. This result may suggest that high turnout of older people and the aging of voter have little or no influence on politics, even though discussion about senior power or gray power is sometimes paid attention to.

To determine the effects of positions of the trunk, head and neck on the swallowing function in the Japanese elderly.

Subjects included 19 elderlies who participated in the preventive long-term care service, and 16 users of day-care services. The subjects were asked to take the three times, and the findings of each and accumulated time necessary for saliva swallowing were evaluated for both two different positions, sitting and semi-sitting, and three postural changes of head and neck, including thirty-degree flexion, zero and thirty-degree extension. Each positional and head-neck postural effects on the swallowing time were evaluated.

The zero-degree head-neck sitting position was found to be the shortest, while thirty-degree head-neck extension in semi-sitting position was longest time for swallowing. In thirty-degree head-neck postures, no difference was observed in the values of the sitting and semi-sitting positions.

When evaluating the swallowing function, both the sitting position with the zero degree of head and neck, and semi-sitting position with 30-degree head and neck seemed to enable accurate assessments.

Even for the bedridden, as long as the head-neck were flexed, swallowing function could be evaluated as accurately as in the traditional sitting-position evaluation.

This study aimed to examine the relation between the tendency toward Borderline personality disorder and the recidivism. Questionnaires were administered to female inmates in the prison A. Eventually 365 female inmates were included for data analysis. The questionnaires consisted of the age, the number of imprisonment and the Borderline Schemata Questionnaire（BSQ）. In the logistic regression analysis, the interaction effect between an age and the tendency toward Borderline personality disorder was significant for the number of imprisonment, which suggested that elderly female inmates who have the tendency toward Borderline personality disorder was more likely to lead to a higher risk of the recidivism.

This study was designed to identify the process of forming positive and negative attitudes toward end-of-life care among care workers in long-term care health facilities（LTCHF）. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 certified care workers. The data were analyzed using the Modified Grounded Theory Approach and categories and sub-categories were indicated by using <> and { } respectively. Results indicated that respondents experienced <accepting end-of-life care for the elderly> in LTCHF. This acceptance was related to the awareness of {responsibility of LTCHF}, because of the lack of other facilities for end of life care and inadequate family care for the elderly. Respondents built {intimate relationships with elderly, and their families} by long-term utilization of end of life care. As a result of experiencing end of life care, respondents had <positive attitudes toward end-of–life care and care experiences>, and these attitudes led to <a sense of usefulness when providing care>. In contrast, if respondents were to have <negative attitudes toward end-of-life care and care experience>, such attitudes evoked {a sense of insufficiency of care} in respondents.