Quality of Life in Elderly Population – A Survey

Abstract

Elderly is defined as being 65 years of age or older. Falls are common in older individuals and result in loss of confidence and independence. The number of persons above the age of 60 years is fast growing, especially in India. India as the second most populous country in the world has 76.6 million people at or over the age of 60. The aim of study was to evaluate the quality of life in elderly individuals. In this study we have included 100 subjects aged 65year and above. We assessed the quality of life in elderly individuals by using two scales Modified falls efficacy scale (MFES) and Activity specific Balance scale (ABC). In MFES scale, there were 14 self report questions scale of 0 to 10 and then we have to access how confident they feel while doing activities without falling which measure confidence in one’s ability to avoid falling during the performance of activities of daily living. RESULT: In this study 49 individuals were from rural background and 51 individuals were from urban background. We calculated the frequencies through which we observe that in case of ABC there was no significant difference in score of both urban and rural population In conclusion both scales were able to measure differences in falls related quality of life. We used these scales on urban population as well as on rural population. In case of ABC scale both groups were completely confident but in urban population they found few difficulties in completing tasks, where as in case of MFES scale the substantial difference between both the populations were observed.