Functionality of the older adults of the Life Centres of Villavicencio - Colombia. Funcionalidad de los adultos mayores de los Centros Vida de Villavicencio – Colombia.

Abstract

Objective: Characterize the social and demographic conditions, and the functional ability of elders in Life Centers (LC) in the city of Villavicencio. Materials and methods: Quantitative and descriptive study, non-probabilistic discrete sampling with n=635; the instruments used were the Barthel scale and the Lawton and Brody Instrumental Activities of Daily Living scale (IADL). To identify the sociodemographic variables, an instrument was elaborated by the authors. The processing and analysis was made using SPSS Statistics® 20. Results: In the study, 47.4% were men and 52.6% were women in the age range between 60 and 100 years, with a median age of 73 years. Regarding the evaluation of basic daily activities, 59.4% of the elders are independent. On the other hand, for instrumental activities of daily living, 67.6% of elders are independent. Conclusion: Elders from the Life Centers in the city of Villavicencio are, generally, functional elders; however, there is an important group with risk factors, which indicates that prevention of dependency and promotion of successful aging strategies should be implemented.