Some Design Proposals to Support Independent Life of the Elderlies with Mild Cognitive Impairments who Live Alone.

In Japan, the elderly persons will exceed 30% of population and the dementia will be more than 7 million in 2025. This means the one of five elderly persons will be dementia. Most of them will live in own house with his/her suppose or aged children, or alone. The dementia is progressive disease, so patients lose their abilities gradually in approximately ten years. Mostly there are two types of countermeasure action for the dementia; one is care and the other is prevention such as brain training or cognition plus exercise. Even though they will do many things by themselves independently in the early stage of dementia or in the state of Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), they forced to quit daily activities such as cooking or outing by his/her relatives for reason of safety. This inhibition affects as the disuse syndrome, then he/she will lose own abilities faster. As the main symptoms of the dementia is memory loss, the authors focused on prompting behavior by using IoT technology. The sensors in the house are watching the environment and send data to control center in the house. The control center tells the situation by the synthesized voice such as “the stove still burning”, or “the door of freezing chamber is open”, then store the data with time stamp. The resident with memory loss may think about the meaning then make decision and finally do or not do something. The results are stored in the server, so the relatives can monitor the situation of the resident from anywhere

Validation of the everyday technology use questionnaire in a Japanese context.

Background/Objective The Everyday Technology Use Questionnaire (ETUQ), which evaluates the perceived relevance of and the perceived ability in everyday technology (ET) use, has demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties in Swedish studies of older adults. The aim of this study was to examine the reliability and validity of the ETUQ in a Japanese context in older Japanese adults. Methods A sample of older Japanese adults (n = 164) including persons with (n = 32) and without (n = 132) cognitive impairment was interviewed with the ETUQ, including original items (ETs) and added Japanese context-specific items. Data were analyzed using a Rasch measurement model. Results The analysis demonstrated acceptable functioning of the rating scale, internal scale validity, person response validity, and person-separation reliability of the Japanese ETUQ according to the Rasch model. However, evidence supporting unidimensionality in the Japanese ETUQ was not consistent in this sample. The added Japanese items did not significantly change the estimated individual person measures of perceived ability to use ET. Conclusion The Japanese ETUQ seems to be a sensitive tool to evaluate perceived ability in ET use among elderly people in Japan with and without cognitive impairment. Therefore, it could be used in research and clinical practice. Keywords activities of daily living; everyday technology; Instrumental Activities of Daily Living scale; older adults; Rasch measurement modelThe Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (FORTE)The Strategic Research Programme in Care Sciences at the Karolinska InstitutetSwedish Brain PowerThe regional agreement on medical training and clinical research (ALF) between the Stockholm County Council and the Karolinska InstitutetThe research was mainly funded by Health and Labour Sciences Research Grant (Japan)Publishe

住み続けプロジェクト/軽度認知症者の自立を支援する生活家電等の開発

2008年度芸術工学研究所プロジェクト研究「住み続けプロジェクト第１報」の続報である。2009年度は在宅独居（日昼独居を含む）生活をしている軽度認知症者および高齢者の自宅を訪問し、家庭電化製品の使用状況をカロリンスカ研究所が開発した調査手法であるETUQ：Everyday Technology Usage Questionnaire の日本版を作成して行い、スウェーデンの調査事例との比較検討を行った。日本とスウェーデンとの間には、気候風土、習慣や生活規範、社会保障制度、家庭内での男女関係、家庭電化製品のデザイン、住宅様式など多くの面で大きな隔たりがあるが、認知症の進行に伴う生活上の困難には共通する点も見られた。また、この調査を通して在宅軽度認知症者の日常生活上の困難をリストアップし、解決するための家庭電化製品のあり方、および自立生活に有効な支援技術のあり方についての知見を得たので報告する。This report is a continuation of “Project for continuous living in own house, vol. 1″ published in 2009, which was enforced as project research of Institute of Arts and Design in 2008.In this report, the authors describe a knowledge stored by the survey conducted in two countries Sweden and Japan for ementia and elderly residents who live alone in own house. The ETUQ: Everyday Technology Usage Questionnaire developed in Karolinska Institutet is used in both countries translated in Japanese for Japanese subjects. Most of subjects are facing difficulties in their daily living since quit using daily electric apparatuses and/or losing there memory. When appropriate assistive technologies andimplified electronics are produced, a lot of dementias or MCI;Mutual Cognitive Impairment may not give up livingalone at own house

認知力低下に配慮した継続使用が可能な家電製品のデザイン方法に関する研究

少子高齢化が進行している我が国において、認知症者の増加は予想をはるかに上回り、2012年時点で高齢者人口の15%にあたる約462万人が認知症を発症していると発表された（朝田隆、厚生労働省研究班、2013）。一方、2010年現在、高齢者のいる世帯は全体の4割を占め、独居高齢者は男性140万人、女性346万人と推計されている（平成24年版高齢者白書、内閣府）。加齢に伴う生活不安の一つは自身あるいは家族が認知症になることであり、認知症が進行すれば在宅生活をあきらめざるを得ない。アルツハイマーに代表される認知症は進行性の疾患であり、数年間に及ぶ初期症状の段階を経て要介護状態となる。この初期段階における日常生活上の困難や混乱によって生じる「問題行動」は生活行為を縮小させ、認知機能の廃用を引き起こし、認知症の進行を早める危険性がある。著者らは、生活環境とりわけ日常生活で使用する家庭電化製品等（以下家電等と略記）が認知機能の低下に配慮していないことに起因していると仮定し、独居もしくは日中独居の高齢者がどのような家電等を継続使用しているのか、使用を中断したものはないか、といった調査を行い、その結果から認知力が低下しても継続使用が可能な家電等のデザイン方法について7つの知見を得た。In 2013, a research unit of Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare announced that more than 4.62 million are dementia and around 4 million are MCI (Mild Cognitive Impairment), extremely exceeding expectation. On the other hand, households which have elderly counted 42% in 2010 in Japan. The cabinet estimated 1.3 million men and 3.5 million women of over 65 live alone.One of the fears of aging people is to be a dementia. People must move to institute when the stage of dementia goes deep. The dementia like an Alzheimer’s disease become worth in several years, after intermediate stage so called MCI. In this intermediate stage, if some kind of problems happens, family member tend to take his/her independent activities. This makes dementia worth.The authors interviewed 91 elderly who live alone to find what kind of everyday technology are still used or quite using. Finally we found seven items of knowledge to design those elderly friendly