Impact of ageing on depression and activities of daily livings in normal elderly subjects living in old age homes and communities of Kanpur, U.P.

Introduction: Ageing is a progressive, generalized impairment of functions resulting in loss of adaptive response to stress and increasing the risk of age related disease. Methodology: A sample of 200 elderly subjects i.e. 100 from the community (group A) and 100 from Old age home (group B) of sixty & above years of age were taken by the convenience sampling method. The subjects were collected through various old age homes and community which includes Vaikunth Dham Old Age Home, Ishwar Prem Ashram, Swaraj Ashram, Ramkrishna Mission old age home and nearby community located in the Kanpur and Varanasi. The subjects were assigned a number to maintain the confidentiality of the subjects and then the scales were used to assess the scores i.e., Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) and Barthel index of daily livings were used to check the level of depression & ADL’s and then the scores were compared. The results: The mean GDS scores for group A were 11.32 and for group B were 16.42 with a value of -6.981 with a p value of 0.00* and mean ADL’s scores on the Barthel index for group A were16. 54 and 17.98 for group B within value of -2.898 with a p value of 0.004* which shows there is a significant difference. Conclusion: Elderly subjects living in Old age home are more affected in terms of depression and ADL’s as compared to community dwelling elder subjects as old people living in their own homes were most able to cope in their homes. They received more support from relatives and friends than from health and social services