Abstract
Back ground: India has acquired the label of aging nation with 7.7% of its population being more than 60 years old. There has been a sharp increase in the proportion of elderly population in India as a result of demographic transition.[1] Determinants of physical and social health are important in elderly care. The elderly are also prone to abuse in their families or in institutional settings. This includes physical abuse (infliction of pain or injury), psychological or emotional abuse (infliction of mental anguish and illegal exploitation), and sexual abuse. Elderly people are highly prone to mental morbidities.
Aims: To evaluate psycho-social status and activities of daily living and habits of the rural geriatric, population.
Methodology: A community based Cross sectional study conducted during the period of December 2011 to June 2012 on persons aged 60 years and above. Eighteen villages were selected randomly from the Lalgudi taluk of Trichy district in state of Tamilnadu, and Twenty three elderly above 65 years subjects, willing to participate selected randomly from each of these villages and a total of 411 individuals included for this study.
Results: Out of the 411 elderly persons 214 (52.1%) were males and 197(47.9%) were females. Among 381 elderly persons, 231 (60.6%); 145(38.1%) male and 86 (22.5%) female said that they had good relationship with family members, while 88 (23.1%) and 62 (16.3%) reported to be having fair and poor relationship respectively with family members. Received elderly advises by family members, only 164 (43.1%) elderly; 124(32.6%) male and 40 (10.5%) female reported that their advice was honoured by family members. Majority of the elderly 206 (50.1%) and 104 (25.3%) were dependent financially either totally or partially on their children respectively. More than half of the elderly 228 (55.4%) were addicts. Prevalence of mental illness was 97 (23.6%) among the elderly persons. of which women were 67 (34.1%) and men were 30 (14.0%) (p5)
Conclusions: Nearly 43 percent of the elderly persons stated that their advice was honoured by the family members. Significantly higher percentage of females reported that their advice was ignored. Most of the elderly persons spent their leisure time in gossiping, religious activities, playing with grandchildren, walking and taking care of domestic animals. Nearly 55 percent of subjects were current addicts. Higher number of men (71%) was current addicts compared to a woman (39%). Most common type of addiction was tobacco chewing (50%) followed by tobacco smoking (26%). Majority (88%) of the elderly subjects were independent for the activities of daily living.
Key words: Elderly, Psycho-Social, activities of daily living, addiction.
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