Streszczenie
The functional status of Polish centenarians
For elderly subjects their independence in activities of daily living is the most important. The aim of the study was to characterize the functional status of Polish centenarians based on their independence in the basic activities of daily living according to ADL scale and their cognitive functions estimated by MMSE. The study included centenarians of PolStu 2001 program. ADL was estimated in 340 subjects (292 females and 48 males) but MMSE only in 293 mainly due to severe hearing impairment (251 females and 42 males).
Only 4.8% of studied centenarians (14 subjects) had no dementia according to MMSE and was independent in ADL (ADL 0). Their was 9 females and 5 males (3.6% vs. 11,9%; p=0,016).The strong positive correlation was found between the results obtained in ADL and MMSE (p=0,000). It seems possible that cognitive impairment is a very important component of ADL. Further studied are necessary to prove this hypothesis.