Correlation Between Age and Degenerative Diseases in Kendalkerep Primary Health Care (PHC) Malang

Abstract

Increasing life expectancy will increase the risk of degenerative diseases such as hypertension, hyperlipidemia, hyperglycemia and mental-emotional disorders in the elderly. This quantitative study aimed to determine the correlation between age and degenerative diseases. The independent variable was age and Body Mass Index (BMI) and the dependent variables were blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol. The population were pre-elderly and elderly in Kendalkerep PHC (8,629 elders). Researchers used 20% of the population as a sample (1,769 elders). The data collected was the elderly health screening data. Data collection was done through Google Forms. Data were analyzed univariate and bivariate to determine the correlation between age and BMI to the incidence of hypertension, hyperglycemia, and hypercholesterolemia. The univariate test showed that the majority of respondents were elderly (75.7%). 66% were female, 65.9% were classified as obese, 15.1% had moderate hypertension and 4.3% had severe hypertension, 13% suffered from hyperglycemia, 12.8% suffered from hypercholesterolemia and about 61.2% of elders had visual impairments. The Spearman test showed that there was a significant relationship (ά< 0.05) between age and blood pressure, between BMI and blood pressure, between BMI and blood sugar, and between BMI and cholesterol. However, there was no relationship (ά> 0.05), between age and blood sugar and between age and cholesterol. This study suggested that elders in Kendalkerep PHC should have further medical examinations to prevent further impacts such as degenerative diseases. However, improvement in ways of living is also suggested.
 Keywords: Age, BMI, Blood Pressure, Blood Sugar, Cholestero