The relationship between the cognitive function decrease of elderly people and the usability of domestic appliances and participation in outside activities

Abstract

Questionnaires were completed by 327 elderly persons about the usability of ten electric daily-living appliances, their participation in four types of outdoor activities, and their own functional decreases on five types of cognition. The results for the usability of appliances show that videocassette recorders, automatic teller machines, and microwave ovens are the three most difficult devices for the older person to use. On the other hand, the television was one of the easiest devices to use. As for the outdoor activities, elderly people experienced more difficulty with all activities with age. Concerning their cognitive functions, many elderly people experienced showed more difficulty in attention, judgement, thinking and emotional control with age, but their memory functions had was already greatly deteriorated during their sixties. We then calculated the association coefficients to know the relationships between cognitive functional decreases and both the difficulties in using domestic appliances and the difficulties in performing outdoor activities. The resulting high association coefficients indicate that both the appliances with many operational steps and the unfamiliar outdoor activities posed many cognitive problems for elderly persons. These cognitive barriers seem to prevent the elderly people from using the useful electric daily-living appliances or accessing activity environments. We conclude that it is necessary for designers and developers to create cognitive barrier-free designs for products and environments to ensure elderly people can access and use them easily.