スクリプトは事前提出されたものですので、ビデオの音声とは異なる場合があります。

Nursing care: not somebody else's, but everyone's problem

Kushiro National College of Technology

S: Hello, I'm Satomi from Kushiro Kosen.

Y: I'm Yuko.

K: I'm Kyoko.

S: We are good friends with each other. Recently Kyoko looks a little down, so Yuko and I are wondering what's happening to her?

Well, Kyoko, What's happened to you? You look down these days. We are worried about you?

K: Thanks for asking about it. Well, the problem is with my grandmother. She is ninety two years old now. She was really healthy and could do things all by herself up until last spring. However she fell suddenly ill with some lung-related problem and became bed-ridden. My uncle lives with her and runs my grandmother's mom-and-pop candy shop business. The shop is located on the first floor of the house and they live on the second floor. My uncle has to carry her on his back up and downstairs in the morning and evening when he opens and closes the shop, because my grandmother needs assistance for everything all day. It's a very tough job for my uncle to carry her up and down every day, plus take care of her all around the clock. I'm really concerned about his health.

Y: I understand, Hearing about your uncle's caring, I think about our family. We have a similar problem. My grandmother needs family assistance and care too. She's not bed-ridden, but she's wheelchair-bound. Her case is different. She stays in a special nursing home for two weeks, and then moves to her daughter's place, who is my mother's older sister, spends two weeks there and then moves to our family. That may sound strange to you, but we are all happy with this funny situation, including my grandmother. My mother and her sister want to take care of their mother themselves, and my grandmother can keep up friendships with the other residents in the nursing home. And above all it's good to share the work of caring, and my grandmother is able to see her families a lot.

S: Yes, I think being close to family is good, but still it must be a physically and mentally demanding job to care for the aged needing assistance or having dementia. Coincidentally I listened to a lecture by a housing designer about a unique nursing facility he designed. The nursing facility is interesting because it's located right in the middle of a city residential area while other nursing homes are usually out in the suburbs. Being in the city makes it easier and more convenient for the families of the elder mothers or fathers to go and see them whenever they wish. They call such a facility a satellite home. The nursing facility arranges for the elderly who can still walk to live self-sufficiently. The facility also encourages the home tenant elderly to involve themselves in exchange programs with the local community so that they can make friends and feel that they are included in the local group. Not only that, the facility also encourages its seniors to do as many things as possible by themselves to prevent them from becoming demented. I was very impressed by what the facility is trying to do to improve its old users' lives.

I think it might be good if Kyoko's grandmother was in such a nursing facility.

It must be really tough for your uncle and his family to take care of their bed-ridden mother.

K: Yes, it is tough. My grandmother is too weak to live in a nursing home away from her family. But I'm worried about my uncle's health. Home care requires a lot of physical labor. So I've checked into useful home gadgets and equipment for nursing care. And I found out that there are home elevators available, and so-called robot suits which help with jobs that require muscle power such as bath-taking and getting a senior in and out of a vehicle. Just recently a robot called RIBA has been developed to help care takers move their seniors into and out of a bed or a car. RIBA reacts to human voice and moves the way it is instructed. It's quite an invention, but in terms of cost, it's not realistic yet.

Y: I've heard that every-day electric appliances such as electric pots, air conditioners and fire alarms that are fitted with sensors can detect the movements of seniors in their homes. They inform the senior person's family whether the movements are normal or not. There is a safety camera available which is installed in a senior's home and sends images of the senior. These appliances seem affordable and convenient. It's quite timely because it's become obligatory for each household to install a fire alarm. That would promote the use of a fire alarm as a care-taking appliance as well. Just think about when we ourselves become old and possibly have to live alone. It does make us feel insecure and anxious, doesn't it? We also have to be concerned about seniors living by themselves. We are living in the aged society, not aging society. People aged 75 or older will account for about 30 % of the national population by the year 2033. So the possibility is high that we will live a lonely life when we get old. It's not someone else's problem any more.

S: Yes, you are right. That's why I decided to go and listen to the lecture. A satellite style nursing home looks ideal for me. There are over one hundred fifty thousand satellite style nursing homes in Japan now. The number will have to grow. But if I need assistance from my family when I'm a senior, I'd like them to use those nursing gadgets and equipment that Kyoko talked about. In either case, I'd better start saving money for that. Also I sometimes get worried that I may get dementia myself. I wouldn't like to cause any problem to my family, but you never know what will happen to our health as we grow older. There again I may have to care for my parents if they should suffer from dementia. So it's important and sensible to plan for the possibility of dementia and get information about caring for people with senile dementia, while we are still young and healthy.

K: We hear of more and more dementia cases. People forget their own names, can't recognize their sons and daughters or wander around inside and outside their houses and suffer many other symptoms as well. So nowadays pendants with a GPS function set in, and special foot rugs are available. The rugs make noise when ill parents step on them when they get out of the bed or when they exit the house. They are smart devices because they alert other family members when the dementia sufferer is on the move, and as a result, may prevent dementia sufferers from falling down or other calamities.

Y: It looks like we have to consider the care-taking problems from different angles. There is giving care and receiving care, and the choice of caring for a senior inside the house or making use of a nursing facility.

S: Yes, that's right. I agree that nursing care is not someone else's problem anymore, but it's the whole society's problem now. We could either be caring for our parent or receiving care ourselves. It's good to think about what we can do from now when we are still young.

K: Let's do so. Nothing is certain now. We should do something to make the situation better, not only for our aged society but also for ourselves.