Saitama prosecutors look to rehabilitate elderly shoplifting suspects
The Saitama Public Prosecutor's Office has created a pilot program to help seniors who have been caught shoplifting as the number of such thefts by those aged 65 and over has surged recently. Such a rehabilitative program by prosecutors is rare, according to experts, who ...
Return of Fukushima elderly gives preview of future
The nation honored its dead last week from the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Tohoku's Pacific coastline on March 11 four years ago. For those who have spent those years helping survivors in Tohoku, the experience has thrown up the challenge of how to knit ...
Art therapy tours enliven dementia patients and their caregivers
In a quiet corner of the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, a small group of elderly dementia patients accompanied by relatives and caregivers gathered in December in front of a work by French avant-garde painter Pierre Bonnard. Yoko Hayashi, representative director of Arts ...
Elderly make up 37% in public housing for Tohoku disaster victims
Some 37.2 percent of the disaster victims still living in temporary public housing in the three prefectures hit hardest by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami are 65 or older, and roughly a quarter of the households are composed of individuals living alone. In Iwate, Miyagi ...
Elder care givers take on surge in demand
Elder-to-elder nursing care is expanding in Japan due to the aging of care workers. The ratio of elderly workers is rapidly rising in the nursing care sector because young people are unwilling to take on the tough, low-paying work. While care services, including bathing support, are ...
The government should consider overhauling the nursing care insurance system to ensure stable services for the elderly and to rationalize the system's overall operation.
The number of cases of the "it's me" scheme to swindle senior citizens out of their savings is soaring of late as swindlers devise new ways to avoid the police crackdowns.
Government earmarks funds to deal with caregiver shortage
A crisis in nursing care is brewing. The government estimates that the nation will be short of 300,000 professional caregivers by 2025, when postwar baby boomers will be 75 or older and many will need regular care. The health ministry says Japan will need 2.5 ...
The government should carefully monitor the nursing care industry to ensure that budgetary cutbacks do not reduce quality of their services.
The number of households on welfare reaches a record 1.62 million.
Generations square off in a battle for the ages
You'd think they owned the planet. They think they do — pushing into line at supermarkets, hogging seats on trains, generally behaving as though no one but themselves existed except to provide the services they need. Once upon a time — not very long ago ...
Aging brings gray hair ... and greater happiness
In our mind's eye, old age is to be endured as much as enjoyed, since people fear declining health, growing dependence and increasing social isolation. Then why do public opinion surveys show that, on average, people count themselves happier after age 65?
