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PHYSICAL STATUS, DEPRESSION AND SLEEP QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF OLDER PATIENTS IN NURSING DEPARTMENTS

A. Jakavonyte-Akstiniene, J. Macijauskiene

Abstract

Background. Every fifth citizen of Lithuanian are at the age of 60 years and older. Old age is related to the frailty and disability. Depression is related to disability, suicide risk and higher mortality rates. Older people's poor sleep is associated with a reduce physical activity. Besides, adequate sleep duration reduced mortality in older adults. The main goal of this paper is to assess physical status, depression and sleep quality of older patients in nursing departments. Methods. The study has been taken from January 2015 till in nursing departments in a long-term care and treatment hospital. The Geriatric depression scale (GDS) was used for assessment of depression (Yesavage el al., 1982). Sleep quality was evaluated with the Pittsburgh sleep quality index (Buysse et. al., 1989). Functional lower extremity strength in older adults were assessed using The Five times sit to stand test (Whitney et al., 2005). Results. The study included 177 patients, of whom 71 were men (40.1%) and 106 were women (59.9%). The average age of the patients was 78.93В±8.95. Only a fifth (20.9%) of respondents participating in the study were able to perform The Five times sit to stand test. Statistically significant differences was not found between this test results and the patient's deterioration in the period prior to the hospital (p = 0.971). About three-quarters (75.5%) of patients with mild depression and slightly more than four fifths (84%) patients with severe depression reported bad sleep (p = 0.001). We found significantly different poorer sleep quality for patients with depression. Conclusions. This study has shown that more women than men slept badly. Besides, our participantВ’s the quality of sleep is related to depression. The Five times sit to stand test have been carried out by a little less than a quarter of respondents, while it has played only a few fully (10.17%) patients.

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