Geriatric Nursing

A research group led by Associate Professor Kazuki Uemura of the Graduate School of Rehabilitation Science, Osaka Metropolitan University conducted a cross-sectional study, using GPS and accelerometers, of 133 elderly people (aged 65 or older) in Toyama Prefecture to investigate their out-of-home behavior and amounts of physical activity during 14 days. The results demonstrated that the amounts of physical activity among the participants were more strongly influenced by the number of visited places (nodes) than by out-of-home time. This suggests that diversity, not just duration, of out-of-home behavior may be important when encouraging the elderly to go out to extend their life expectancy.