Activities of Daily Living and Prevalence of Chronic diseases Among Elderly People in Yazd

Aging is a period in lifespan experienceswhereby people are threatened by the potentials such as increase in chronic diseases, loneliness and isolation, as well aslack of social support. Their individualautonomyis threatened in casesofmental and physicaldisabilities. Survey of problems of the elderly people is one of the health care priorities in Iran so as to manage and develop a care plan for this population. The aim of this study was to determine the activities of daily living and prevalence of chronic diseases of the elderly people in Yazd. Thisisacross-sectional study conductedon265elderly people over 60 years in Yazd in 2012. A clustersampling method wasapplied. The data were gathered by 2 questionnaires including questions on demographic characteristicsand independentinstrument of Daily Activities Living (made by Yagmaee with 20 questions). Then statistical tests such as Kruskal–Wallis, andMann-Whitney were used to analyze the data. The mean grade scores of ADL and IADL were 36.03±5.99 and 24.25±8.22 diseases (r=-0.332, p=0.001). The most prevalent diseases of the participants were arthralgia (74/8%), osteoporosis (53/8%), hypertension (49/4%), sleep problems (39/2%) and cardiovascular diseases (38/5%) respectively. A significant proportion of the elderly in our population were relatively dependent in terms of their activities of daily living.Bathing in this context is one of the most important dependencies. In addition, high prevalence of chronic diseases was arthritis and osteoporosis among others. They needed to be taken care of more andit seems that theeducationalinterventionprograms forthe elderlyand their families seems to be veryuseful.