[Prevalence of skin diseases among nursing home patients in elderly home nursings in north of Tehran]

ABSTRACT

Continuing advances in medical care and nutrition have prolonged the lifespan and expanded the elderly demographics world-wide. Despite increasing elderly population within Iranian nursing homes, there has been a few dermatologic surveys in this field and the prevalence of skin disorders among this group is unknown. This study was carried out between November 2005 and February 2006 in Theran city to determine the prevalence of skin diseases within nursing homes of Tehran. We randomly selected 456 subjects out of 2500 old women and men and investigated their dermatologic and epidemiologic conditions among 2500 elderly subjects, 456[18.5%] were investigated. This study revealed that more than half of all nursing home patients suffered from at least one skin disease, the most common skin disease was dry skin. Seborrheic keratosis and pressure ulcer were the second and third common skin conditions, respectively. There was no case of scabies. Two patient had basal cell carcinoma, and one patient was suffered from Kaposi sarcoma. Our study revealed that skin diseases are important health problems in Geriatric population. The results suggest that dry skin is the most common skin disease within nursing homes which needs further attention of nursing home staffs to satisfy the dermatologic needs of these group of Iranian patients