Evaluating the level of physical activity and common mental disorders in elderly people who use chronic medicines
International Journal of Development Research
Evaluating the level of physical activity and common mental disorders in elderly people who use chronic medicines
Received 20th August, 2018; Received in revised form 21st September, 2018; Accepted 23rd October, 2018; Published online 30th November, 2018.
Copyright © 2018, Ísis Silveira Dias et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Aging causes physiological changes that can lead to the appearance of chronic degenerative diseases and consequently the chronic use of medications. This article aims to evaluate the level of physical activity and mental health of elderly people who use chronic medications. This is an epidemiological, quantitative and cross-sectional study. The sample consisted of 128 elderly people of both genders. To obtain the data, we chose the BECK anxiety and depression questionnaire, the ABUEL questionnaire for medication use and the IPAQ short version. As results it was verified that the majority of the elderly use drugs for pain and depression and the use of antidepressants had a positive and significant association with low level of physical activity and with anxiety, p≤0,014 and p0, 015. It was also found a strong association between the use of drugs for depression and heart in anxious people, p≤0,015 and ≤0.02. It is respectable that the likely effects of drug use among the elderly are well known. Specific attention should be paid to the elderly who use polypharmacy.
