Physical and Psychological Problems of the Elderly at an Aged Care Center

Abstract

Introduction: As the world is aging, there is a growing interest in various morbidity patterns among the elderly population. This study aims to find out the physical and psychological problems among elderly people and to determine the factors associated with the problems. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out among 46 elderly people who were residents at the Aged Care Center in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Elderly aged 60-years and above were selected purposefully for the study. Physical disability, geriatric depression, cognitive impairment was assessed using the Barthel index, Geriatric depression scale, Elderly Cognitive Assessment Questionnaire respectively. The association between sociodemographic data and physical disability, depression and cognitive impairment were also evaluated by using bivariate analysis. Results: The mean age of the respondents was 73.3 ± 7.41 years and among them 52% were females. Among the participants, the prevalence of physical disabilities was 17.39% and the commonest problem was climbing the stairs. The Prevalence of cognitive impairment was 13.04% and the commonest impairment was found in memory recall. The Prevalence of geriatric depression was 32.6%. The prevalence of depression and cognitive impairment were higher among unmarried, illiterate and unemployed respondents. Overall physical and psychological impairment was higher in the age group 80 to 89 years and also in females. Conclusion: Increasing age, particularly those who belonged to age group 80-89 years were at significant risk for physical disability, depression and cognitive impairment.