초록
As our society progresses rapidly toward an aged society, there is a stiff increase in the population of the aged persons who have difficulties in adjusting themselves to environments due to declines of their physical functions. Therefore, there is a great need for the concept of 'Universal Design' that demands the design of overall social structure to care for the elderly. Due to this reason, the physical function of the aged persons should thoroughly be studied for the development of rehabilitation and training equipments to help the recovery of physical functions of the elderly. Among the variety of physical functions of the elderly, visual functions, motion characteristics, hearing functions, and somatosensory functions have significant influence toward everyday lives and are physical functions to study for the construction of urgently needed physical function databases of the elderly. This study concentrates on visual functions among the variety of physical functions of the elderly. To measure various visual functions of the elderly, a measurement room for the elderly has been developed, which can mimic everyday lives and perform measurements of visual functions with subjects in seated position. The measurement items for the construction of the database were capabilities in everyday vision according to changes in arrangement of colors and light intensity and capabilities in everyday vision, color distinction, dark adaptation, and light glare against changes in contrast.
