Assessment of socio-economic, functional and medical problems among the elderly in one rural community of Thailand.

ABSTRACT

A survey of persons aged 60 years and over in Mae Sot in Tak Province, Thailand was conducted in 1989 to determine the prevalence of socio-economic, functional and medical problems. A total of 567 elderly persons from 8 villages systematically selected from 54 villages outside the municipality were interviewed and examined. Ninety-eight percent of them lived with their children or relatives. There were few elderly persons reporting difficulty performing basic physical activities of daily living due to the very low proportion of older elderly in this area. 13.3% of men and 14.5% of women reported some degree of urinary incontinence; however, most of them complained of only slight incontinence at occasional intervals. 62.4% of the study elderly had a body mass index below 20. The mean body mass index for men (19.5) was slightly higher than that for women (18.7). One hundred and two out of the 567 elderly surveyed were found to have hypertension and 51% of these hypertensives were newly diagnosed during this study. There was no association between the prevalence rate of hypertension and any of the other studied variables, including age, sex, educational level and smoking habits. The overall prevalence rate of diabetes in these elderly people was 1.6%. The mean body mass index of the diabetic group (23.1) was significantly (p less than 0.05) greater than that of the non-diabetic group (19.1). Special homes for the aged may become necessary in the future as young people migrate away from rural areas where their aging parents live to urban areas.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)