Abstract
The purpose of this study was to provide basic information about the program space planning of skilled nursing facilities for the elderly in order to consider elderly health and diversity and to improve their rehabilitation ability. A mail survey was undertaken and 58 out of 78 facilities $(74.4\%)$ responded to the questionnaire. The answers of $56 (71.8\%)$ were used for analysis. The results of the study were as follows. Many programs, especially exercise, recreation, and facility events programs that require dynamic activity, were conducted in the lounge of the facilities because that area was wide with various equipments such as tables, sofas, and sound facilities, and did not require any huge movements of the elderly since it was very close to the elderly individual rooms. The art and human knowledge programs, managed with small groups, were peformed in separate program rooms or elderly individual room so that the elderly could pay attention to the programs. On the other hand, as for the design elements, the spaces for the art and human knowledge programs required good lightings and separate program rooms. The area of the spaces for the exercise, recreation and facility events programs was found to be the most problematic element, even though they were performed in the comparatively wide lounge. For future research, a field observation study is suggested to analyze the detail relations among the program spaces.
