Health problems among Elderly - A Community based survey in a rural area of Ernakulam district

Abstract

Aim: A survey was conducted to identify the health problems of elderly residing in a selected rural community of Ernakulam district. Background: People worldwide are living longer. Today, 125 million people are aged 80 years or older in the world. Older age is also characterized by the emergence of several complex health states that tend to occur only later in life. Common conditions in older age include hearing loss, cataracts, refractive errors, back and neck pain, osteoarthritis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, hypertension, depression and dementia. Furthermore, as people age, they are more likely to experience several conditions at the same time1. Methods: A survey was conducted to identify the health problems of elderly population residing in a selected rural community of Ernakulam district. 340 elderly aged 60 years and above were included in the study. Convenient sampling technique was used and data regarding health problems of elderly was collected by interview method. Results: The present study concluded that among the 340 subjects, 62.1% had health problems. The major health problems among elderly were sleep disturbances (40.6%), problems of vision (33.5%), musculoskeletal problems (24.4%), hypertension (23.8%), diabetes mellitus (21.8%) and hearing problems (20.3%). 4.1% of elderly were having difficulty to perform their activities of daily living as measured by Katz Index of activities of daily living Scale. Conclusion: The study shows that elderly suffers from various health problems, which shows the need of comprehensive health service to address these problems.