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Screening for diseases in elderly persons: the correlation between physical checkup findings and chief complaints
B M Cheung1, K C Jeng, Y J Lau
1Department of Family Medicine, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan, ROC. bmhcheung@vghtc.vghtc.gov.tw
Background:
The effectiveness of a physical checkup program for screening for diseases in the elderly, in terms of correlation with their chief complaints has not been previously evaluated.
Objective And Methods:
The study was to examine the correlation between physical checkup findings and chief complaints of elderly people. Study subjects were over 65 years of age. There were 792 males and 373 females. They all attended a 2-day physical checkup program at Taichung Veterans General Hospital from January 1, 1994, to December 31, 1995.
Results:
The results showed a significant difference (p<0.05) between male (12.0%) and female (16.8%) subjects in the relationship of clinical findings to chief complaints. When the locations of chief complaints were compared, those concerning the neck and the limbs corresponded well to our clinical findings. However, there were differences between female and male subjects (42.4 and 24.4%, respectively; p<0.01) in this aspect. There was a good relationship (p<0.05) between physical checkup findings and complaints of lower back pain (75.2%), upper abdominal pain (46.2%) and knee joint pain (38.3%). However, we found that 43.7% of physical checkup findings were not linked to chief complaints.
Conclusions:
The results suggest that additional appropriate clinical tests may improve the effectiveness of physical checkups and thus result in health benefits for elderly persons.