[Functional ability in people above 80 years old].

OBJECTIVE

To discover the functional capacity (CF) for population over 80 years assing to an health center.

DESIGN

This was an observational crossover study, using OARS questionary.

SETTING

An urban health center.

PATIENTS AND OTHER PARTICIPANTS

A sex and residence proportional sample of aged 80 and over was taken from 1986 census registry.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS

To asses functional capacity we used ADL (Activities of daily living) dimension from OARS questionry. It's composed of 14 items, seven for basic activities of daily living (AVDb) and seven for instrumental activities (AVDi). We considered severe incapacity if the aged had some difficulty in one AVDb at lest; moderate incapacity if the showed only a trouble in some AVDi, and good CF if didn't show the least difficulty in any item. The 42.2% of aged had severe incapacity, 26% of population had got good CF. The most incapacity was watched in house-works and cooking; in the AVDb were sphincters and control and cleaniless corporal.

CONCLUSIONS

Functional capacity in population aged in the zone is lightly inferior to the other studies, however the ages chosen aren't comparable absolutely. We find differences in functional capacity between sex, the results are better for men. Population aged who is living in institutions have mainly CF moderate, and the married are more good functional capacity than singles or widows.