Manual dexterity as a correlate of dependency in the elderly

Physical and mental correlates of dependent living were determined in 128 Catholic sisters (nuns), aged 75 to 94 years, who had similar social support systems and lifestyles. The primary a priori hypothesis was that poor manual dexterity would correlate strongly with living in the nursing home. Stepwise discriminant analysis indicated that manual dexterity explained 51% of the variance in the sisters' residential living site (ie, nursing home, retirement home, or living in community). The discriminant analysis equation using manual dexterity predicted living site correctly for 63% of the sisters in the nursing home with a specificity of 99%, a positive predictive value of 96% and negative predictive value of 84%. The addition of age and mental status to the equation improved the prediction only slightly.