Experiments on the manipulation of doors by the elderly with dementia

Abstract: It is common for elderly people with dementia to be confused about opening and closing doors. In the door opening and closing operation, various factors such as the way of door opening and closing , the shape of the handle, and the material of the door seem to affect the judgment and understanding of the opening and closing operation method. Therefore, in this study, we investigated the characteristics of door opening and closing operations of elderly people with dementia, and examine how to control the behavior of elderly people with dementia by door design and control problem behaviors in daily life.First of all, we examined the incidence of BPSD and other diseases and the measures being implemented through questionnaire surveys and on-site surveys.Next, we conducted an experiment to confirm the judgment, comprehension, and memory of elderly people with dementia, who are thought to be the cause of these occurrences, regarding the peculiar storage behaviors found in the on-site survey. The experiment was conducted on 10 elderly people with dementia at a special nursing home in Okayama Prefecture. We asked them to store daily life tools in multiple storage devices with different ways of opening and closing, and examined their opening and closing movements and memories of stored objects. It was found that the opening and closing of storage furniture doors in elderly people with dementia was influenced by long-term memory.In addition, we conducted an open/close operation experiment to investigate the current status of the opening and closing operation of the doors of elderly people with dementia. Using a miniature door samples of various ways of opening and closing, with various life-size handle We observed the opening and closing operation of the door of an elderly person with dementia, and confirmed how the judgment and understanding of the operation method change depending on the shape of the door handle and the opening and closing method. The experiment was conducted on 14 elderly people with dementia at a special nursing home in Okayama Prefecture. It was difficult to open and close a door that required unfamiliar operation such as a push plate with a single-hinged door that opened by pushing. It seems to be influenced by past experience with opening and closing.We hope that the results of these experimental studies will lead to measures to prevent problematic behaviors (troubled storage and wandering) seen in the daily lives of elderly people with dementia.

Keywords: Door, Dementia, Handle, Way Of Door Opening, Examine, Bpsd, Storage, Wandering, Observation

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1004795

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