Relation between gazing characteristics and environmental condition during daily behavior of elderly people

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K06676
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Architectural environment/Equipment
• Research Institution: Osaka City University
• Principal Investigator: Umemiya Noriko 大阪市立大学, 大学院工学研究科, 教授 (90263102)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2020-03-31
• Keywords: 高齢者 / 転倒事故 / 注視特性 / まぶしさ感 / 縮瞳速度

Outline of Final Research Achievements

To prevent fall accidents, elderly people evaluated light in bright and dark rooms for this study. Relations among light characteristics, daily health and consciousness, the vertical distribution of gazing points, and pupil responsivity to rapid light changes were measured. Results show these points: 1) Elderly people, who showed better responsivity to brightness than young people, judged bright environments as darker and dark environments as brighter than young people did. 2) People with concentrative type gazing points liked uniformly lit environments less, felt less comfort in dark environments, and felt less glare in bright environments. 3) Elderly people with high pupil responsivity reported glare-sensitivity and eye fatigue, with worse visibility in dark environments. For elderly people, who felt more glare, less comfort, with less preference for and more performance in light environments, pupil responsivity was higher, but it was unrelated to brightness.

Free Research Field

建築環境工学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

高齢者の転倒事故は高齢者の事故の約8割を占め、日常生活自立度が急激に低下する原因となっている。健康寿命と平均寿命の差が10年弱あるなかで、健康寿命を伸ばすために転倒事故の防止は重要である。本研究は転倒の環境側要因として光環境に着目し、アイカメラを用いて歩行時の注視特性や明るさ急変時の瞳孔反応を測定し、高齢者の光環境評価特性、およびその歩行時の注視点分布や瞳孔反応との関係について明らかにした。