This study focused on the odors in elder care environments, as odors are one of the most important issues in long-term care environments. The aim of this report is to clarify the actual condition of home care and how caregivers evaluate the care environment.To achieve this, we conducted a questionnaire survey of caregivers living together with the elderly who use long-term care insurance.The results were as follows 1. More than 70% of the elderly are over 80 years old, and 28% are certified as care level 4 or 5, which means that they require substantial care or support in daily life. A total of 52% of the caregivers take care of the elderly without any support from other family members.2. Irrespective of the care level, home care of the elderly is a burden to the caregiver. Over 60% of the caregivers think that it is difficult to contact their friends, maintain their social life and invite people home.
This study used the Simplified Olfactory Measurement Method to clarify the fundamental characteristics of substances with offensive odors present in human living environments and to measure the odor detection threshold of these substances, which have relatively high boiling points and high molecular weights. Results showed that propanoic acid was the highest in those substances, with an odor threshold of 49 ppb, and phenylacetic acid was the lowest in those substances, with an odor threshold of 2.4×10-6 ppb. Although there was a gap between the Simplified Olfactory Measurement Method and the Triangle Odor Bag Method, the former still fell in the range of thresholds that can occur between panels. Furthermore, the threshold for the relationship between thresholds of straight-chain fatty acids and molecular carbon numbers gradually decreased for carbon numbers from three to five and increased again in six. That trend resembles the result of the Triangle Odor Bag Method.
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