Kazuhiko Nishide

Environmental and physical factors predisposing middle-aged and older Japanese adults to falls and fall-related fractures in the home: Environmental & physical factors of fall

To identify environmental and physical factors that predispose middle‐aged and older Japanese adults to falls and fall‐related fractures in the home.

A STUDY ON THE HOME MODIFICATION REQUIRED FOR DISCHARGED PATIENTS FROM HOSPITAL TO HOME

The objectives of this study are to find out the actual situation of discharged patients’ home modifications to mitigate the environmental gap between a recovery rehabilitation hospital and their own houses, as well as to identify their potential needs of house improvement. The results of this study shows: 1) Patients have many potential needs for home modification which is hard to be discovered by PT or OT at the one-time-only home inspection one month before discharge. 2)The typical suggestion from PT and OT is to install handrails while architectural expertise has limited opportunity to give professional advice, therefore their collaboration system should be established.

A STUDY ON IMPEDIMENTS OF INDEPENDENT WALKING OF ADVENTITIOUSLY BLINDED PERSON

In this research, the authors tried to clarify which kind of objects or situations are preventing adventitiously blinded people from smooth walking in daily walking environment. Ten adventitiously blinded people are asked to walk independently in environments which they are fully accustomed to and have little difficulty to walk. Their walking behavior are recorded by video camera and analyzed. The results are as follows: 1) Adventitiously blinded people tend to walk on either side of street, where there are objects such as power poles and bicycles which could be serious obstacles. 2) When walking on sidewalks, sometimes adventitiously blinded people happen to wander into parking lots or open spaces. 3) Tactical tiles, which are basically guiding adventitiously blinded peoples walking, are sometimes very difficult to follow, because surrounding grounds surface is very similar to tactical tiles.

A STUDY ON INDEPENDENT WALKING BEHAVIOR OF ADVENTITIOUSLY BLINDED PERSON

In this research, we tried to clarify how adventitiously blinded people walk, and how different walking behaviors are among these people in real walking environments. Ten adventitiously blinded people are asked to walk independently in environments which they are fully accustomed to and have little difficulty to walk. Their walking behavior are recorded by video camera and analyzed. The results are as follows:1) Very small bump are widely used with white cane. 2) Visual information, such as white line on roads is used with slight eyesight. 3) Slide motions tend to be used by subjects with little experience of being blind and physical/psychological handicaps, along with many kinds of techniques tend to be used by subjects with rich experiments of being blind. 4) Tactical tiles are considered to be useful. However, some troubles in real use are suggested.

EFFECTS OF SPATIAL ENVIRONMENT AND LAYOUT ON THE CREATIVITY AND PSYCHOLOGY OF BRAINSTORMING GROUPS

This study experimentally examined the effects of spatial environment and the layout of a conference room on creativity. It also provides the results of psychological evaluation of brainstorming groups with the aim of determining favorable characteristics of a conference room for brainstorming. The study included 30 subjects who were divided into six groups of five people each. Each group brainstormed in two rooms; the first room had a standard layout for all teams, and the second room had six different layouts, including the standard one, for each team. Three of the six groups (hereafter called, G I), started from Room 2, and the other three groups (G II) started from Room 1. After a ten-minute brainstorming session for each team, the subjects were evaluated psychologically. Three correlative psychological factors were determined for the brainstorming groups, and psychological evaluation showed different factor loadings and features in several evaluations for each room. It was found that the spatial environment and layout affect each factor, and a significant difference was found in the number of ideas generated for the standard layout between the two rooms because of the effects of spatial environment. In addition, the changes of personal space affected by physical environment contribute to opposing tendencies between G I and G II with regard to choice of favorable/unfavorable layout for brainstorming.

THE EVALUATION AND USAGE FOR THE ENVIRONMENT BY PARENTS ON PERIOD OF CHILD CARE IN TAMA NEW TOWN, JAPAN

In the modern society, the rate of declining birthrate and growing proportion of elderly people has increased; therefore, a policy that is considerate of children, the elderly people, and handicapped people is necessary in terms of resolving the problem. Recently, they are almost isolated from the aspect of living environment and welfare in Japan.From these circumstances, resources of nursing environment for revitalization of living environment and local environment where parents would prefer to raise their children are needed to be reconsidered.This study has written based on making a comparison on how each city is evaluated as a child care environment. Therefore, both user and nonuser parents of nursery schools and kindergartens with daycare services as well as other nursery services are the main target in this study. Through the researches, an attempt to examine a child care in a supportive environment for parents from the unified viewpoint on city, work, and child care has been made.

The Behavioral Basis of Environmental Design for Human Beings

Can sustainable urban regeneration make people rich? Do sustainable urban regenerated spaces really make people rich? Could hard space respond to the diverse and ever-changing needs of people? Doesn’t it force people to moderation? People do not change according to the environment. People adapt the environment according to themselves.