A woman in her 70s died at her home in Nagoya’s Meito Ward, and her severely disabled son in his 40s, who lived with her, was found in a weakened state on the 14th of this month.
About 68,000 people aged 65 and over in Japan are estimated to die alone at home unnoticed annually, data collected by the National Police Agency indicated Tuesday.
Preliminary police figures showed 21,716 people nationwide died “lonely deaths” from January to March. Nearly 80 percent of that number, or 17,034 people, were aged 65 and over.
The police agency is expected to continue collecting the data as part of government efforts to tackle the issue, as the country is grappling with a rapidly greying society.
How can we support the lives of elderly evacuees in disaster-affected areas? This is a challenge that Japan faces as a whole as its population ages.
Four months have passed since the Noto Peninsula Earthquake in central Japan. In the Okunoto region that was hit directly by the quake, close to half of the residents are seniors. Elderly care facilities that have supported the welfare of local residents also sustained major damage.
Japan is forecast to have 5,866,000 elderly dementia patients in 2050, up over 1.4 million from 2022, an estimate showed said on Wednesday 8th May.
The average premium rate at corporate health insurance societies in Japan is projected to hit a record high of 9.32 pct in fiscal 2024, according to the National Federation of Health Insurance Societies, or Kenporen. Reflecting an increase in contributions to the medical care services for the elderly, the rate is expected to rise 0.05 percentage point from the previous year, which ended in March, the group of health insurance societies for employees of large corporations and their families said Tuesday.
A Japanese man who lost his wife and daughter in a high-profile accident involving a runaway car driven by an elderly man five years ago says he hopes to “leverage (through dialogue) the victimizer’s experience to prevent traffic accidents.”
The bereaved man, Takuya Matsunaga, 37, is slated to hold a meeting shortly with the elderly man, Kozo Iizuka, 92, who is serving a prison term over the incident.
A man has died following an accident involving his suit jacket getting caught in an escalator at a station in Ibaraki Prefecture, police said Wednesday 27th March.
A disability news-related digest from the first few days of April 2024 in Japan, the beginning of the fiscal year. Kobayashi Pharmaceutical Co. says that water leaked “into ‘beni-koji’ production tank in past.” Japan’s Health Ministry conducted a poll that revealed 35% of people are prejudiced against ex-leprosy patients and 2024 brings changes regarding policies about health and for people with disabilities in Japan.
In a country notorious for its reliance on cash, municipalities across Japan have been staging electronic payment uptake drives to stimulate digitalized consumption by granting shopping points for transactions using QR codes.
Some remain reluctant, especially elderly people and others who find digital devices difficult to operate, and who continue to view cash as the be-all and end-all for making purchases.
Currently, foreign technical intern trainees and foreign workers with so-called specified skills are allowed to work at care facilities in the country. They are banned from engaging in home help services to provide one-on-one assistance to users, however, due to concerns about their communication skills in Japanese.
Barrier Free Japan