Standards of Living Space in Elderly Care Facilities Response to Infectious Diseases

ABSTRACT

Since the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, many elderly people have been infected in elderly care facilities, so there is a very high demand for preventing the spread of infectious diseases in elderly care facilities. In this study, as one of the measures to suppress mass cross-infection in the elderly care facility, it was attempted to derive appropriate area standards for the residents' living space. The study targets the living units of nursing homes for the elderly with 30 or more people, and the study was conducted through domestic and international standards review, infectious disease management guidelines, facility visits, and interviews with related staffs working in elderly care facilities. As a result of the study, it was found that the optimized size of the living unit is 16 people or less, and it is necessary to install an isolation room for each living unit and a special bedroom for each nursing unit. The floor area of the bedroom is 35.4㎡ (8.9㎡/person) for a 4-bed room, 27.7㎡ (9.2㎡/person) for a 3-bed room, 22.2㎡ (11.1㎡/person) for a 2-bed room, and 13.0㎡ for a single bedroom. The common living room is used by all members of the living unit in normal, but when infectious diseases are spread, it is necessary to secure at least 2.3㎡/person on the premise that half of the elderly people in a unit uses this living area simultaneously in consideration of social distancing and density. These area standards were calculated in consideration of the elderly life, provision of nursing care services, and infection control, and can be used to improve the building standards of elderly care facilities. © 2021 Architectural Institute of Korea.