高齢者のプライマリ・ヘルス・ケアに関する研究 : コミュニティにおける長期臥床老人と その家族の心理的相互関係

The Japanese population is aging rapidly. By the year 2000, the number of people aged sixty-five and over is expected to increase to nineteen million, or one out of seven. Japan's present policy toward the elderly is far from satisfactory; it must be mor comprehensive, effective, and farsighted. In our project of Shimane Comprehensive Community Health Care since 1978 we have made efforts toward integrating services for the elderly called Service Package Health Care, including the health and medical care, their social welfare, and their cultural life, to regulate the needs of bed-ridden elderly and their family attendants in Shimane Prefecture, which has the highest population of aged persons in Japan. We carried out a research into the psychological situation of the elderly cared at home, and found that most of the bed-ridden elderly and family members nursing them have, actually or potentially, many problems of psychological conflicts which arose from the conservative climate characteristics in the communities. It is necessary to establish the community solidarity and to organize community health care system that can meet well enough the demands of bed-ridden elderly and their family members.