ABSTRACT

The population aging of Japan is to exceed all other countries, with Japan having the highest proportion of older adults. This have brought Japan to a number of social problems, and one of them is to increase elderly patients who need geriatric care year by year. It is unfortunate that many cases of elder abuse or ageism have been reported in Japan due to the low quality of care for elderly patients who were cared at home or at long-term care facilities. While taking a comprehensive view of the Japanese legendary tale of Obasuteyama phenomena that were told to discard older adults in the ancient society, the modern culture of respecting older adults compared with the phenomena of ageism in this paper.