Pattern of gastrointestinal diseases among elderly patients in Arar City, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia [KSA]

The world's population is aging and the number of people who are >/= 60 years old increased worldwide. The elderly population is susceptible to various benign and malignant diseases. Gastrointestinal diseases are among the common health problems that affect the elderly

Aim of the study: to identify the pattern of gastrointestinal diseases among elderly patients in Arar city [KSA] and the relation with gender in the study population

Subjects and methods: a cross sectional study was conducted in five randomly selected primary healthcare centers in Arar city [KSA], from September 2016 to March 2017. It included 118 elderly patients. A questionnaire was designed for data collection about socio-demographic variables, smoking, BMI, chronic diseases and types of gastrointestinal diseases among participants

Results: findings showed that all participants suffered from dental problems and 24.6% had gum problems. Other diseases affected various proportions of the studied elderly population including loss of appetite, gastric regurgitation, chronic constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic colitis, peptic and duodenal ulceration, liver cirrhosis, viral hepatitis, cholecystitis, gall stones, pills, anal fissure and GIT tumors. Statistically significant differences were found between males and females regarding having piles, gall stones and anorexia. On contrary, all other GIT diseases showed insignificant differences between males and females

Conclusion: different types of GIT diseases were found among the participants with varying rates. Significant gender differences were observed in some diseases [piles, gall stones and loss of appetite] while most of the studied GIT diseases showed insignificant differences between both sexes

Prevalence and determinant factors of chronic calculous cholecystitis among senile population arar, ksa

Background: chronic calculous cholecystitis is an inflammatory disease which affects the gallbladder wall and causes motoric-tonic dysfunctions of the biliary system accompanied by gallstones in the lumen of the gallbladder and biliary pain. Among aging study groups, the prevalence of gallstone disease is likely to increase

Aim of the Work: to determine the prevalence and determinant factors of chronic calculous cholecystitis among senile population in Arar, KSA

Patients and Methods: the present cross sectional community based study was conducted in Arar city, Northern Border Province, KSA on 217 adult people aged 50 years and more. Data were collected through personal interviews with the study population and filling the questionnaire which guided us to the data of socio-demographic status, smoking, chronic diseases, already previously diagnosed with chronic calculous cholecystitis, after ensuring the diagnosis by reviewing the accompanied health reports and/or prescriptions and asking the accompanied caregivers about the case

Results: the mean age of the participants [+/- SD] was 69.9 [+/- 9.3] years; male to female ratio was 43.8 to 56.2. The overall prevalence rate of chronic calculus cholecystitis found in this study was 6.9%. There was a relationship between chronic calculus cholecystitis and age group, sex, DM, BMI group, Thyroid disease and Hypertension. The prevalence of chronic calculus cholecystitis was more in females compared to males [9.0% vs. 4.2%]

Conclusion: female gender, diabetes and obesity are significantly associated factors in the development of gallstones. Thus, understanding the gallstones pathogenesis would result in life style modifications and weight loss which would decrease the rates of the disease