A STUDY ON BODY-TEMPERATURE REGULATION AND RESIDENTIAL THERMAL ENVIRONMENTS OF THE ELDERLY .1. WHOLE COUNTRY SURVEY OF RESIDENTIAL THERMAL ENVIRONMENT AND EVALUATION METHODS - RTE-INDEX

1. As part of ''research on environmental comfort,'' that is, research which aims to make people's living environment more comfortable, we a ttempted to clarify the relation between the living environment of eld erly people and physiological and psychological factors. We carried ou t a comprehensive study with a view to establishing comfort standards for the residential thermal environment, and for creating evaluation a nd control systems. 2. The comfort of the living environment is closel y related to the thermal environment and the temperature-regulation ab ility of the human body. This ability of the body to regulate temperat ure develops during childhood and recedes as the adult ages. 3. We the refore carried out: (a) experiments on body-temperature regulation and on special characteristics of the body-temperature regulation of elde rly people, (b) a nationwide survey of the actual residential thermal environments of elderly people and (c) a survey of the daily activitie s of elderly people, and how elderly people's physiological and psycho logical conditions change when they are engaged in these activities. 4 . As a result of these experiments and surveys, we were able to: (d) f ormulate standards for evaluation of the residential thermal environme nt and (e) numerically express the results of systematic evaluation of residential thermal environments of elderly people, by means of a RTE -index.