A Comparative Study of Research Trends in Residential Design for the Elderly in Domestic and International Research Using Co-occurrence Analysis : Focusing on Web of Science Core Collection & the KCI-Korean Journal Database

Abstract

In aging society, providing comfortable and optimized residential environment for the elderly is essential task for policy makers, designers, and researchers. The purpose of this research was to identify research trends in housing design for the elderly, both domestically in South Korea and in international, in order to propose a future research and a strategy for the research community. For this goal, we analyzed research documents published in domestic and international journal articles retrieved from Web of Science databases, using VOSviewer software for keyword co-occurrence analysis. The results show that international studies categorized as follows: (a) systems, services, and technologies, (b) care and health, (c) illness and life of the elderly (dementia, depression, etc.), and (d) macroperspective (population, project, government, and public-private partnership); domestic studies were categorized as (a) characteristics of residential environment, (b) studies on elderly care facilities, (c) architecture and interior design for the elderly, and (d) user needs and design elements. Compared to international research trends, those of domestic research tended to lack convergence of diverse areas and interest; thus, expansion of research interest towards more diverse disciplines including technology, health, medicine, nursing, and policy is necessary. The results provide insights for the direction of future research on the aging society of South Korea.