It is very important to understand the characteristics of the body form of the old people in order to make clothes suitable for them. However, few papers or reports have been published to date on the body size of the old people, especially on the dress-making for the old people. The purpose of this study is to obtain basic data and to investigate the characteristics of the senile body form. Then we could study the pattern making of comfortable clothes for the old people.
Back form of the senile body is remarkably deformed. The Part 1 examines the side silhouette by using pictures. The results are summarised as follows:
(1) The body form of women is more deformed than that of men, increasing their thoracolumbal kyphosis. It might be caused by the difference of their living environment.
(2) The side silhouette of women can be classified into four types.
(3) There are some features of the thoracolumbal kyphosis. For examples, truncus bends forward or backwards accompanied by the antef lexion of the venter. There are flexion of membrum superius and membrum inferius on almost every kyphosis.
Further studies are scheduled on the longitudinal and horizontal sections of the senile body.

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The body size of 196 women of more than sixty years old has been measured to learnthe types of the senile physiques of old women, which are necessary to the clothes design for the old women. Results are as follows : (1) Fourteen items have been compared with those of the young women. As is expected, the longitudinal items of the old women are considerably shorter and peripheral items are longer than those of young women. (2) Differences between the posterior full length and the cervical height distribute over a wide range. For examples, the subjects which have the difference longer than 6.0 cm are about 23%. This means obviously the round back posture by the deformation of the vertebra. (3) The difference between the chest- and the waist-girth and the difference between the hip-and the waist-girth also distribute over wider range, and the most probable value is smaller compared with that of the young women. So, it is clear that the deformation of the physique is very remarkable at the waist part. (4) Thus, it is concluded that special cares should be taken in measuring the chest-, waist-girth and the posterior length.

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