Avaliação da saúde dos pés dos idosos institucionalizados

Abstract

Aging is characterized as a continuous process of transformation, in which the individual is influenced by factors such as genetic inheritance, lifestyle adopted over the time, environment, opportunities or inequalities in health, as well as changes anatomical and physiological. In the aging process, problems occur that interfere with functional capacity and implicate in the quality of life of the elderly. These include changes in the structures of the feet. The objective was to evaluate the health conditions of the institutionalized elderly feet and to identify the most frequent alterations. Quantitative and descriptive study in the city of Passo Fundo, RS. This is a major research subproject entitled: Aging and longevity patterns: educational and psychosocial biological aspects, coming from the National Academic Cooperation Program-PROCAD / Capes, Edital n.71 / 2013. Took part in this study, 174 elderlies, inclusion criteria were: individuals aged 60 years and over, regardless of health conditions and exclusion: elderly hospitalized during the data collection period, presence of lower limbs amputated, history of burns and / or recent surgery on the feet. The data were collected by a team previously trained, from October 2016 to May 2017, using a structured questionnaire containing questions related to sociodemographic characteristics, physical examination of the feet and to evaluate the degree of hallux deformity was used at the scale of Manchester. It was used a the descriptive analysis and respecting the ethical principles of research with human beings, the elderly or their caregivers signed the Informed Consent Term and the project was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Passo Fundo, opinion no. 2,097,278. The results indicated that the most frequent alterations are of the nature: nails with higher prevalence of onychomycosis, onychogrifosis and onycholysis; dermatological diseases with a higher prevalence of untreated callus and bromidrosis; bone deformities, the most frequent were the cavus foot and the transverse arch. The degree of deformity of the hallux valgus indicated by the most prevalent Manchester scale was mild deformity. There were complaints of pain in the feet. More attention is needed to the health of the feet of the institutionalized elderly, health professionals and caregivers, aiming to prevent these changes and better quality of life for the elderly.