[Comparative study of quality of life in the elderly between in Kahoku and in Yaku]

A comparative community-based study of quality of life (QOL) in the elderly was carried out between two Japanese rural towns, Kahoku and Yaku.QOL, which included the subjective sense of health, appetite, sleep at night, mood, memory, family relationships, friendship, economic condition, life satisfaction and happiness was assessed using a visual analogue scale (VAS) as well a Geriatric depression Scale (GDS), a variety of neurobehavioral function tests, and a questionnaire about activity of daily living (ADL). Subjects were all the eligible elderly aged over 75 years in both communities. Inter-rater reproducibility in VSA was more reliable than that in GDS. Life satisfaction and a subjective sense of happiness highly correlated with mood, family relationships, friendship and economic condition. GDS and VAS significantly correlated with family relationships, active participation in a group and economic condition, however, they did not correlated with age. The subjective sense of happiness correlated with ADL and steadiness of walk as assessed by neurobehavioral function tests. Living style correlated with VAS in the male elderly, but not female. Each score in VAS for family relationships, friendship, economic condition, life satisfaction and subjective sense of happiness was significantly higher in the elderly in Yaku than in Kohoku. The diseases which elderly people wanted to avoid were dimentia cancer, stroke, and cardiovascular disease in that order. In conclusion, QOL in the elderly population was influenced by disease, neurobehavioral functions, especially walking function, gender difference, lifestyle as well as cultural environment.