The health of elderly Chinese living in the community

A stratified random sample of 1000 elderly Chinese was drawn from the electoral register of three constituencies, namely Tiong Bahru, Henderson and Bukit Merah. It was only possible to interview 612 subjects. The questionnaire included social resources, activities of daily living, mental health and physical health. The majority of elderly in the sample (79% young-old and 73% in old-old) had good or mildly impaired social resources, meaning that social relationships were satisfactory and at least one person would take care of him/her indefinitely on for short term. On activities of daily living, 2.3% of the young-old and 14.5% of the old-old were moderately or severely impaired and needed help daily. About 97% of the young-old and 87% of the old-old had good or mild impairment of physical health. Most subjects were in good mental health (92.2%). The prevalence of dementia was 1.8% and depressive disorder 4.6%. Senile dementia was more prevalent in the old-old (2.8%) than the young-old (0.5%).