Acoustic environment of comprehensive activity spaces in nursing homes: A case study in Harbin, China

Abstract

Nursing homes are places where the elderly conduct their daily activities, and frequent gatherings of nursing home residents may lead to a complicated acoustic environment in which elderly people may have declining ability to function. This study explores the acoustic environment of an activity hall in a nursing home in Harbin, China and assesses the elderly residents’ perception of and preference towards sounds by using site observation, sound measurements, and a questionnaire. The results showed that the elderly evaluated the activity hall’s acoustic environment as poor. When the reverberation time in the hall exceeded four seconds or the sound pressure level exceeded 65 dB(A), their subjective evaluation of the comfort of the acoustic environment declined. Overall, the participants evaluated background and foreground music positively, liked to participate in music-related activities, were not bothered by mechanical sounds, and disliked speech sounds. They preferred (near-) silent activities, while the evaluation of activities with low-dB(A) and high-dB(A) depended on the degree of participation and personal preference. During activities in the activity hall, participators’ acoustic evaluation was generally more positive than that of the onlookers, and music-related activity sounds (singing and dancing) were perceived as more comfortable than vocal activity sounds (playing chess and cards). The results also show that the acoustic environment evaluation is associated with social background factors. This study may help improve the elderly’s quality of life in nursing homes by providing a reference for the construction and design of elderly facilities.