Perfil epidemiológico e hematológico de idosos de uma instituição de longa permanência em Fortaleza/CE.

Abstract

With increasing life expectancy, the number of elderly has grown over the years and to serve this audience, shelter intuitions are emerging. Along with age, many pathologies appears, one of them is anemia, which is defined as a decrease of hemoglobin in red blood cells, leading to serious health risks such as fatigue and dizziness. The objectives of this study were to determine the epidemiological and hematologic profile in the elderly in a long-stay institution in Fortaleza/CE, in 2014, to evaluate the frequency of anemia among the elderly and compared with the reviewed literature. A descriptive and retrospective study with a quantitative approach was carried out to reach an epidemiological and hematological profile of the institutional home. The data of the internal were analyzed from January to December 2014, through the evaluation of records of the same and the results obtained were statistically analyzed using the EpiInfoTM program for Windows version 3.5.1. Of the 93 studied elderly, regarding the epidemiological profile, it was observed that: most of the elderly were women (54.8%) were older than 81 years (49.5%) were single (19.4%), were illiterate (46.2%) were born in the interior of Ceará (61.3%) had from retirement income (2.7%) were in the shelter for less than 5 years (49.5%) were smokers or former smokers (39.8%) and 50.5% had never consumed alcohol. Regarding the blood profile, it was found that of the elderly, most had number of red blood cells (53.2%), hematocrit (40.4%) and hemoglobin (53.2%) low; RBC indices (MCV, MCH, MCHC), RDW, leukocyte count and normal platelets (85.1%, 72.3%, 74.5%, 78.7%, 76.6%, 85.1%, respectively ) and had a high frequency of anemia (53.2%). The anemia found in this study is worrisome because it is associated with increased disability, morbidity and mortality senile.