Gemeinschaftsmedizin und Gesundheitserziehung

Abstrakt

Handling of Household Flammables by Elderly Dwelling in the Community: General Survey on Actual Status; The Kurihara Project

Takada J, Meguro K, Ishikawa H, Ouchi Y, Nakatsuka M and The Kurihara Project Members

Background: Handling errors with household flammables, such as pan burning, may result in serious accidents. However, there have only been a few reports on the actual status of fire accidents, regardless of whether they were small or serious.
Methods: 590 residents aged 75 years or older in Kurihara, northern Japan, consisted of 223 Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) 0 (healthy), 294 CDR 0.5 (very mild dementia), and 73 CDR 1+ (dementia) participants. The family members living with the subject were asked about the actual status over the past 3 years: Handling of a heating appliance in winter, handling of household flammable items other than a heating appliance in daily life, and accidents and failures related to fire.
Results: We found that 93.1% of the subjects operated heating appliances by themselves. The rate was high in all CDR groups, and that in the CDR 1+group was 79.7%. Furthermore, the use rate of IH (Induction Heating) appliance was quite low. According to the free descriptions, the accidents were caused by a decrease in attention/ executive function and the ability to predict risks.
Conclusion: Their preference of a cooking stove rather than IH was probably due to easier switch system. The risk of rubbish burning has not been well established. Rubbish collection is quite a new service in some regions, and there may be a big gap between the service and their memory of the past habit.