Avaliação da funcionalidade de idosos atendidos em ambulatório especializado na cidade de Fortaleza-CE

Abstract

Introduction: Brazil experiences a gradual process of increasing its elderly population, the changes resulting from senescence and senility can manifest themselves in different ways in the systems. Thus, a more comprehensive look at physical-functional, socioeconomic and self-care capacity changes as well as changes that impact on strength, balance, loss of mobility or aerobic capacity are needed. The present study had the objective of evaluating the functional capacity of the elderly accompanied in a geriatrics outpatient clinic in the city of Fortaleza-CE. Methods: This is a cross-sectional, descriptive and quantitative epidemiological study. After inclusion and exclusion criteria, 68 individuals were included in the study. A socio-demographic and socioeconomic data sheet was applied and the six-minute walk test (6MWT), dynamometry and barthel index were applied. The collected data were analyzed by the IBM® SPSS Statistics® version 22 data analysis software. Measurements of mean, fashion, median and standard deviation were used. Data were tested for normality (Kolmogorov-Smirnov test). The independent variables were selected for analysis using the Pearson correlation. The simple t-test and the chi-square test were performed with significance level p <0.05. Results: The total sample consisted of 68 elderly individuals, the majority of the evaluated individuals were female 57 (83.8%), 11 (16.2%) were male. As for Barthel Index, the majority of the participants were independent, representing a total of 86.8%. Regarding the six-minute walk test (6MWT) of the 68 elderly people evaluated, 12 (17.6%) did not reach the predicted value in the literature, the average distance traveled by study participants was 385.8 ± 121.5. When we observed the average hand grip force (MPF) comparing the dominant and non-dominant side of the individuals, we observed that there was no significant difference between them. When we correlated the participants who did not reach the predicted and their functional performance measured by the Barthel index it was noticed that there was no statistically significant correlation (p = 0.187). Conclusion: The elderly evaluated by the study presented risk factors for the development of health conditions and limitation to functional activities. However, in relation to the 6MWT, most of the individuals presented good results in relation to the predicted distance in the literature, but it was not possible to correlate the test result with a low index in the daily life activities evaluated by the Barthel Index.