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Relationship of Age, Gender and Routine Physiotherapy with Depression among Elderly People in a Multidisciplinary In-patient Geriatric Care Ward: A Cross-Sectional Study Vaishali K*

Vaishali K , Vaishali K , Senthil P. Kumar , Vijaya Kumar , Prabha Adhikari

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Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy Journal 5(1):p 19-26, January - March 2012. | DOI:

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Background: The number of elderly is continuous growing thus increasing the scope and demands for geriatric care in a multidisciplinary model. The medical conditions associated with ageing and various disorders pose a challenge to the palliative health care professionals, especially physical therapists who are responsible for addressing physical and functional dimensions of care. Purpose: The objective of this study was to assess the prevalence of depression among elderly people admitted in a hospital. Materials and methods: Fifty four elderly people with age and gender (male-20, female-34) were assessed by the physical therapist using Geriatric Depression Scale-Short form (GDS-SF: 15-item version), where a score >5 out of a total 15 suggested presence of depression. The patients were undergoing regular physiotherapy in terms of group physical activity, yoga, general mobility exercises, and breathing exercises. The setting included a physician, physical therapist, yoga therapist, dietitian, nurse, and a counselor. Data analysis was done for comparing the depression scores between genders and medical diagnoses, and then correlated with person’s age using SPSS version 11.5 at 95% confidence interval. Results: The overall prevalence of depression among the study population was 66.7%. Overall, the depression scores among the study participants were low (8 ± 3.82). The depressed elderly had a score of 10.11 ± 2.76 compared to non-depressed elderly (3.77 ± 1.26) which was statistically significant. There was no significant difference in GDS-SF (15) scores by gender (male-8.1 ± 4.66, female- 7.94 ± 3.31), but was significant for medical diagnoses (gastro-intestinal, pulmonary, metabolic and musculoskeletal). Conclusion: There was a high prevalence of depression among the elderly and their depression scores were less, which might be attributed to their subclinical depression status. Those who underwent regular physical therapy had lesser scores than their counterparts. The study findings have important implications for designing future prospective designs of clinical trials on physiotherapy interventions for depression.

Keywords: Ageing; rehabilitation; end-of-life care; psychosocial factors; physiotherapy

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