Health conditions and life styles of residential elderly. Part 1. Characteristics and factors related to being healthy elderly persons from a survey of health life style

: A survey was conducted in a highland community of Gifu prefecture on 815 residential elderly persons, over 65 years old, utilizing self-administered questionnaires to study the degree of association between life style factors and health conditions. A total of 718 valid participants (90.6% of the total) were analyzed and cross-examined by applying Breslow's seven health factors, daily behavior factors, physical health consciousness, social mobility factors (13 behavior factors which were determined by the Institute of the Elderly) to determine associations with respondents health conditions. Of the participants, 310 were male and 408 were female with mean ages of 73.8 +/- 6.9 years old and 74.0 +/- 6.9 respectively. The survey results indicated that there were no prominent gender differences over the mobility rate and physical health consciousness among participants. However, it was also found that in the male participants the per person prevalence of past history of illness was higher than in females. In the daily activity analysis, female participants indicated a higher prevalence of difficulty in walking and balance maintenance while ascending and descending stairs. In the general daily activity analysis, male participants had a higher requirement for an aide. In social mobility, male participants recorded a high degree of self-reliance by being physically, socially, and intellectually active and the female participants by fulfilling their social responsibilities. Breslow's seven health indicators were applied and their evaluation points were calculated as 3.9 +/- 1.7 for male participants and 3.5 +/- 1.8 for female participants which showed a significantly higher score for the male participants. The survey also indicated that factors which increase the Breslow score for males, were having a spouse, hobbies, a satisfactory life, a habit of exercising, and non-smoking which in females an appropriate sleeping habit (not less than 7 hours), and working, were the positively related factors.