A research group led by Nakakita Satoshi, a visiting researcher at Kio University Graduate School, conducted a survey of elderly people living in the community and revealed that there are disparities in social participation in physical activity among frail elderly people depending on the area, even within the same municipality, and that local ties such as interacting with neighbors are important in promoting participation.
Frailty is a state before the progression from health to disability, and increases the risk of falls, fractures, need for nursing care, and death. As a countermeasure, social participation centered on exercise (physical social participation) is said to reduce risk. However, it is possible that people are unable to participate in physical social participation sufficiently due to their frailty. Furthermore, to counter frailty, it is necessary to understand the actual situation of regional disparities in physical social participation within the same municipality, but there are few survey reports on this.
The research group therefore conducted a mail survey in 65 targeting elderly people aged 80 to 2022 who live in City A and have not been certified as requiring nursing care, and examined regional factors related to physical social participation among 6,532 frail elderly people.
As a result, it was found that the proportion of people participating in sports activities can vary by up to 1.5 times within the same municipality. Furthermore, the proportion of frail elderly people among people participating in sports activities also showed disparities within the region, ranging from 6.7% in the smallest district to 16.5% in the largest district.
Furthermore, in areas with the highest rate of physical social participation among frail elderly people, frailty and good relationships with neighbors were found to be promoting factors for physical social participation, unlike other areas, suggesting the importance of local ties such as good relationships with neighbors in areas where participation is easy.
This study is one of the few to investigate factors related to physical activity-related social participation among frail elderly people. It points out that community-based initiatives that enable frail elderly people to maintain ties with the local community are important for promoting nursing care prevention through drop-in centers.
Paper information:[Comprehensive rehabilitation] Examination of local factors that promote physical social participation among community-dwelling frail elderly people
