The epidemiologic study of geriatric patients at siriraj geriatric clinic.

ABSTRACT

A retrospective study was designed to explore the epidemiology of geriatric patients at Siriraj Geriatric Clinic organised by the department of Preventive and Social Medicine, both in terms of social and medical aspects. A total of 854 patients were recruited with a male to female ratio of 1 1.6 and an average age of 67.1 + 6.1 years in 1985 and two years more in 1995 ranging from 60-90 years. The majority of the patients were married (62.1%), achieved secondary school (47.5%) and depended on pensions (46.4%). The average number of family member actually living in the same house was 4.0 + 2.7. The number of those who smoked cigarettes, drank alcohol and consumed tonic food were 29.1 percent, 41.7 percent and 48.7 percent respectively, while multivitamins were taken most in the tonic food category (31.7%). Regarding the prevalence of clinical complaints, arthralgia was the most common problem (58.3%) followed by amnesia (51.5%). Those who lived in a single family tended to be economically poorer than those who lived as an extended family, and they tended to work outdoors during the pre-retirement period. Being unable to take the bus was the most common disability among instrumental activity of daily living (IADL) while the elderly aged 71 years or more were found more among those who failed to perform each aspect of instrumental activity of daily living, especially in self-drug administration with the highest odds ratio of 19.5 (95% confidence interval 2.4-884.9). As far as systemic complaints were concerned, the elderly aged 71 years or more were found to suffer more significantly from hearing loss and urinary system symptoms with an odds ratio of 2.4 (95% confidence interval 1.5-3.7) and 2.1 (95% confidence interval 1.0-4.4) sequentially. When considering the impact of clinical complaints to the IADL, those of visual abnormality, hearing loss, urinary symptoms, amnesia and insomnia were found more frequently in those patients with impaired IADL that was statistically significant. The elderly with three chronic diseases or more or who were regularly taking three types of drugs or more would be disabled in terms of IADL, with odds ratios of 1.8 (95% confidence interval 1.1-2.9) and (95% confidence interval 1.8-6.4) respectively.