Results of determining psychosocial rehabilitation needs of Mongolian elderly / Монголын Анагаах Ухаан

ABSTRACT

Introduction: The mental and behavioral diseases affect in loneliness and discrimination of elderly people and mostly reduce the quality of life of elderly people compared to injury and accidence. Wulf Rossler, Switzerland mentioned that all kinds of mental diseases require long term care, especially rehabilitation. In our country, we lack of survey on determining psychosocial rehabilitation needs for the elderly, therefore it became the background of the research. Goal Determine the psychosocial rehabilitation needs of Mongolian elderly people Method and materials The research was carried out by cross sectional method. In the research was involved 1207 elderly, who are retired, of which 60 and over for male and 55 and over for female from one cluster of each economic and geographic regions of Mongolia. The research was conducted by using Geriatric depression test, Spielberg Hanin test to reveal anxiety, Mini mental examination test to assess the cognitive status and AUDIT test to evaluate the alcohol usage. The diagnoses were put according to ICD-10 based on geriatric examination. Results: Out of survey involved 1207 elderly, 32.5 percent (392) referred to men, 67.5 percent (815) to women, and their mean age was 68.1±8.1 (68.9±6.5 in male and 65.7±8.5 in female). While 473 elderly were from Ulaanbaatar city, 734 of them were from 4 regions of countryside. In terms of mental and behavioral diseases, anxiety and depression were prevailing among Mongolian elderly. Thirty eight point five percent of survey involved elderly investigated to have depression and 44 percent - anxiety. Moreover, dementia was found 36 and sleep disorder 28 per 1000 elders. Twenty three point six percent of elderly had slight cognitive impairment, 13.9 percent moderate cognitive impairment, while 2.1 percent had severe cognitive impairment. The cognitive impairment is differed in terms of region. The moderate cognitive impairment predominantly revealed in mountainous and eastern regions, while the severe cognitive impairment was prevailing in central and eastern regions. Due to classification of needs of elderly into medical, financial and other needs, found that, 37 percent of elderly required medical, 33 percent financial and 37 percent other needs. In terms of psychosocial needs, 30.4 percent wanted to have a place for spending free time, 23.9 percent to make new friends and 6.1 percent to hire a job. Also 4.4 percent of elderly had a need of having a caregiver. Conclusions: 1. Out of mental and behavioral diseases, anxiety (38.5 percent) and depression (44 percent) were prevailing among elderly. 2. Each Mongolian elderly had need of 1-2 psychosocial needs. 3. All kinds of psychosocial rehabilitation including the medical, adaptation enhancing and social rehabilitation are equally required for the elderly people.