Assessment of functional status and daily life problems faced by elderly in a North Indian city

The increase in proportion of elderly implies that their problems demand more attention of the administrators. The current study was carried out to assess the functional status of the elderly and to explore the extent and pattern of routine daily life problems faced by them.

An integrated qualitative and quantitative research design was employed. A stratified multistage random sampling technique was used to select the respondents from various areas of Chandigarh. The houses were selected randomly from where elderly persons (> 60 years) were identified. Katz Index of Independence in activities of daily living (ADL) was used to evaluate functional ability of the respondents. Instrumental ADLs (IADLs) were assessed using Lawton and Brody scale. Focus group discussions and in-depth interviews were conducted among the elderly to explore their problems using an interview guide.

One thousand and eighty elderly were enrolled in the study. Their mean age was 67.22 ± 7.54 years. (range 60-102 years). The majority (70%) were independent in carrying out their daily life activities. Financially, around one-third were completely dependent and around half were partially dependent. Major dependence was in food preparation, housekeeping and laundry. From the qualitative data, four main themes were formulated, that is general personal problems of elderly; family problems; problems faced by elderly in hospitals and at public places. A feeling of purposelessness, financial insecurity, physical dependency, problems in hospitals and so on, emerged as the main problems.

Majority of the elderly considered their lives as problematic because they were dependent physically as well as financially. The main domains of dependency were problems related to bowel continence, food preparation, housekeeping and laundry.