TITLE:
Health Status of Urban Medium-Low-Income Elderly at the Community
AUTHORS:
Lilia Cárdenas-Ibarra, Jesús Z. Villarreal-Pérez, Raúl Fernando Gutiérrez Herrera, Perla Alejandra Mellado-Urbina, Ana Laura Turner-Llaguno, Adolfo Montemayor-Alatorre, José Carlos Lira-Castillo, Fernando J. Lavalle González
KEYWORDS:
Community Health, Elderly, Awareness, Treatment and Control of Hypertension and Diabetes Mellitus Type 2
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases,
Vol.8 No.3,
March
26,
2018
ABSTRACT: Background: Nonagenarians are uncommon in our population. The study aim was to profile physical mobility, declared health problems, hypertension and diabetes frequency, awareness, treated and good control in urban low-income elders. Method: The study had cross-sectional design in population sample. Subjects were urban men and women older than 59 years at the medium low income stratum at a developing country. Survey was carried out from October 2008 to October 2009. All elder dwellers in randomly selected houses were surveyed; clinical exam after consent. Good Control: Systolic/Diastolic Results: There were 162 elders, 53 (32.7%) were male, 99 (61.1%) were younger than 70 years. Forty nine (30.2%) had impaired mobility; among them 20 (55.6%) were bed or home restricted, and 29 (44.4%) needed help to go out. Unstable health condition was found in 36 (22.2%), with significantly more men 19 (52.8%) vs 34 (27.0%), X2 = 8.5, df1, P 0.05. The frequency, proportions for: known diagnosis, on treatment, and good control were 75 (69.4%), 55 (73.3%), 45 (60.0%) and 12 of 45 (26.7%) for hypertension; 53 (49.1%), 47 (88.7%), 42 (79.2%) and 9 of 42 (21.4%) for diabetes. The most frequent unstable conditions were cardiovascular. Conclusions: Data suggest unstable health no association with the oldest old. The small proportion in good control of Diabetes and/or hypertension could explain the large frequency of elders with unstable health and prevention of reaching nonagenarian age.