Culture and Long-Term Care

The Bath as Social Service in Japan

Traphagan, John W. PhD

John W. Traphagan, PhD, is Director of the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He is author or editor of numerous books and articles on aging in Japan, including Taming Oblivion: Aging Bodies and the Fear of Senility in Japan (SUNY Press, 2000), Demographic Change and the Family in Japan's Aging Society (co-edited with John Knight, SUNY Press, 2003), and The Practice of Concern: Ritual, Well-Being, and Aging in Rural Japan (Carolina Academic Press, 2004).

Offprints. Requests for offprints should be directed to: John W. Traphagan, PhD, Director, Center for East Asian Studies, University of Texas at Austin, One University Station G9300, Austin, TX 78712, E-mail: [email protected]

Care Management Journals 5(1):p 53-60, Spring 2004.

A central feature of Japan's approach to community-based care of the elderly, including long-term home health care, is the emphasis on providing bath facilities. For mobile elders, senior centers typically provide a public bathing facility in which people can enjoy a relaxing soak along with friends who also visit the centers. In terms of in-home long-term care, visiting bath services are provided to assist family care providers with the difficult task of bathing a frail or disabled elder—a task made more problematic as a result of the Japanese style of bathing. I argue that the bath, as social service, is a culturally shaped solution to a specific problem of elder care that arises in the Japanese context as a result of the importance of the bath in everyday life for Japanese. While the services may be considered specific to Japan, some aspects of bathing services, particularly the mobile bath service, may also have applicability in the United States.