[Study of environmental factors for care of demented elderly men]

Men interact with the environment, which sometimes leads them into distressful conditions. This stressful stimulation can induce neurodegeneration and hippocampal atrophy by increasing the glucocorticoid level. Especially, the elderly population is very vulnerable to exposure to the increased glucocorticoid due to environmental stress that results in accelerating the aging process. On the other hand, enriched physical and human environments may help to maintain their cognitive function in spite of aging. For example, aged healthy volunteers with a lower glucocorticoid level caused by avoiding distressful conditions were able to maintain large volumes of hippocampus and a better short-term memory. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether better residency for the elderly men who have a mild type of senile dementia can maintain their mental abilities. We observed and videotaped behaviors of demented elderly men who lived in either a group home or a traditional type of nursing home while they were participating in their daily activities. We made our own inventories which measured the total mental abilities, such as degrees of social interaction, degrees of motivation for participation in daily activities, degrees of independence, and degrees of facial expression, then analyzed the data with these inventories in order to compare the behaviors of the two groups. The result did not show any significant differences in the levels of mental abilities, the degrees of motivation for participation in daily activities and independence between the two groups. However, regarding social interaction, the elderly men who live in the group home exhibited a more approaching behavior toward an unfamiliar person than those who lived in the traditional nursing home.