Fatores condicionantes e determinantes da capacidade funcional em idosos.

Abstract

The aging it is a universal process, not reversible, associated with the gradual loss of the physiological and psychological functions. Currently, 13% of the population consists of elderly, projections indicate that by the year 2025 the country will occupy the sixth place in the ranking of countries with the highest number of these. The change occurred in the age pyramid suggests that health professionals develop strategies to enable the preservation of functional capacity of the elderly, thereby ensuring greater autonomy and better outlook on life. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the influence of socioeconomic, demographic of health and self-rated health on the functional capacity of the elderly. This is a quantitative, transversal, descriptive and analytical approach survey conducted with 172 elderly aged ≥ 60 years, of both sexes, in the city of São José da Lagoa Tapada - PB. An instrument for data collection, which were addressed objective questions based on the Katz index and scale Lawton and Brody adapted to evaluate functional capacity and SPMQS for evaluation of cognitive functions was used. Data analysis was performed using the SPSS software and to verify the association between variables we used the chi-square test, where he accepted the hypothesis of dependence of variables p≤0,01. Of the degrees of dependency assessed by Daily Life Basic Activities (ABVD's) (96.6%) were considered independent and Daily Life Institutional Activities (AIVD's) were considered independent (55.2%), and the Short Portable Mental Status Questionare Pfeifer (SPMQS) (49.4%) possess the cognitive functions preserved. As the relationship between the variables is noted significance of the presence of diseases and ABVD's and IADL's, use of medications and ABVD's and IADL's and the intellectual and IADL's involvement. The results show that most seniors interviewed during the study are presented independent to perform day to day activities, as is noted much of the assessed public displays preserved cognitive functions, we observed a strong correlation between the decline the functional capacity of older people who are in unfavorable conditions to health, affected by diseases, use of medications with decreased cognitive functions and which do not adopt healthy lifestyle habits negatively contribute to a healthy aging process.