Introduction: The proportion of the elderly population in the United Arab Emirates is constantly growing. The aging population presents a challenge for the public healthcare system. Accurate health data is required both from an epidemiological and strategic health care planning perspective. Objectives: To estimate the prevalence of disease, impairment and disability among the elderly. Methodology: A retrospective study was carried out and records of comprehensive assessment forms of elderly patients aged 60 years and over registered in the elderly home based primary care at Dubai Health Authority were reviewed and analyzed. Results: The gender ratio of the elderly patients in the study was 2.1 female: 1.0 male. The mean (SD) age was 78.77 (9.50) years. The majority of elderly patients (70.4%) had 4 or more multiple chronic conditions. The most common prevalent disease was hypertension (67.5%), followed by dementia (57.8), diabetes mellitus (52.4%), osteoarthritis (45.6%) and cerebrovascular accident (38.8%). Almost 70% of elderly patients were either bed bound or chair bound. Functional Assessment (ADL) showed that, only 5.8% of elderly patients were independent. Conclusion: This study provides a valuable insight into the magnitude of disease, impairment and disability among elderly patients. It revealed that, the prevalence of multiple chronic conditions is high. The aging population continues to need a high quality care program, focused on managing multiple chronic conditions and preventing impairment and disability in order to improve health and quality of life of elderly.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.