Capacidade funcional de idosos longevos e sua relação com quedas, medo de cair e desempenho físico

Abstract

The increase in life expectancy and low fertility in recent years favors the exponential growth of the elderly population, mainly of elderly people. The maintenance of functional capacity is essential for maintaining good performance in the activities of daily living and for the quality of life of these elderly people. Functional ability may be influenced by some factors such as falls, fear of falling and physical conditions of the individual. For this reason, the objective of this study was to verify the functional capacity and its relationship with falls, fear of falling and physical performance of oldest old who were aged at an outpatient clinic attended at a health unit in the Federal District. It is a cross-sectional, exploratory and analytical study. For the descriptive analysis of the sample, mean, standard deviation and frequency were performed. Non-parametric tests such as Mann-Whitney, Kruskal- Wallis, Chi-square and Pearson's correlation were applied. For the parametric tests, the student's t-test was used for independent samples. The sample consisted of 50 elderly with aged 80 years or older. Of the elderly evaluated, 64% had partial dependence on the instrumental activities and 82% were independent for the basic activities of daily living. Functional capacity was not related to the history of fall nor to the fear of falling and the physical performance of the elderly people who were longlived. However, it was found that walking speed is related to the instrumental activities of daily living. 54% of the elderly had moderate physical performance. There was a prevalence of 1 fall in the 12-month period, with the majority stumbling as the main reason, and most of the falls occurred within the elderly's residence.