Background: The term "activities of daily living (ADL)" refers to the basic tasks of everyday life, such as eating, bathing, dressing, toileting, walking, grooming and transferring. These activities are fundamental to maintaining functional independence.
Objective: To identify the factors associated with functional dependence in a presenile community elderly population in Korea.
Design: A cross-sectional door-to-door community survey
Materials and Methods: All persons aged 60 to 64 living at home in Dalseong County, Daegu Metropolitan City, Korea were assessed. From the 3,793 subjects who were originally included in study population, a total of 3,034 (80.0%) subjects completed the study. The Korean version of Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSEK), the Korean Form of 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), the Lawton Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Scale, and the Korean Version of Barthel Activities of Daily Living Scale were administered. Using logistic regression model, factors associated with the Barthel ADL were identified.
Results: Female (57.4%) outnumbered male and 34.4% were illiterate. Sex, education, occupation, medical disease during the past 12 months, MMSEK score, and GDS score were included as the independent variables in the multivariate stepwise logistic regression analysis. Of the 6 variables, male gender, unemployment, medical disease during the past 12 months, cognitive impairment (MMSEK, 24 or under), and presence of depression (GDS, 8 or over) emerged as factors associated with the Barthel ADL. The adjusted odds ratios were 3.41 for presence of depression, 3.31 for medical disease during the past 12 months, 2.6 for unemployment, 2.0 for cognitive impairment, and 1.8 for male gender. Education did not reach the statistical significance with the adjusted odds ratio of 1.1.
Conclusion: Presence of depression and medical disease during the past 12 months are important factors associated with functional dependence in a presenile community elderly population, while unemployment, cognitive impairment and sex are relatively less important. Education does not seem to be important in terms of functional independence.
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