Factors related to functional capacity of elderly people - a study in a south Brazilian city

• Autor(a) principal: Santos,Adriana Moraes dos
• Data de Publicação: 2014
• Outros Autores: Franco,Selma, Reis,Marco Antonio Moura
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Geriatrics, Gerontology and Aging (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://ggaging.com/details/106
• topic: Health of the elderly, aging, activities of daily living.

<p><b>OBJECTIVES:</b> The present study aimed (1) to assess the functional capacity, (2) to identify factors associated with dependency in the achievement of instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) and (3) to describe the sociodemographic and health profiles of the elderlies.<br> <b>METHODS:</b> A cross-sectional study was carried with elderly people who live at Joinville (SC). A questionnaire was applied in order to obtain sociodemographic data, health condition and functional capacity evaluated by Lawton's scale. Statistical analysis was performed using the Chi Square test at significance level of 0.05.<br> <b>RESULTS:</b> The sample was composed of 935 elderly people: 57.3% females, 57.9% aged between 60 and 69 years old, 26.2% illiterate, 57.4% living in stable union, 84.3% without exerting remunerated activity and 98.1% with some self-referred health problem. It was noted that 73.2% of them lack any health plan. And 49.2% presented some degree of dependency to accomplish the IADL. The factors associated with the dependency were illiteracy, not being married, age, hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, respiratory disease, memory problems, urinary incontinence, fecal incontinence, falls and quality of life.<br> <b>CONCLUSION:</b> These results suggest that the studied group is characterized by a population of elderly people, users of the health system, with multiple comorbidities, nearly half presented some reduction of functional capacity. So the health system needs to be aware of the reality of these elderly people, in order to identify the potential risk situations for dependency and adequately plan a comprehensive care.</p>