Health Status of the Oldest Old Women A Gerontological Study in Medinipur Town, West Bengal

Abstract

The term ‘oldest old’, generally used to refer to the population aged 85 and older, was coined in 1984 in the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). During 2011 elderly people of India of 80 years and above age has been categorized as ‘Super Senior Citizen’ by the Department of Finance, Government of India for the purpose of income tax assessment. However, while conducting the gerontological studies most of the scholars of India presented their data for the entire age 60 and older population in a single open-ended age category termed as ‘elderly’. This categorization effectively ignored the great heterogeneity within the older population in terms of mobility and health status. Since this oldest old sub population is growing faster and because they are the most likely group to need medical and social services than any other age group, it is necessary to investigate the demographic, socioeconomic and health status of the oldest-old. Therefore, the present paper aims to highlight the health condition of the oldest old female populations residing in Medinipur Municipal Town of West Bengal so that the same may be useful for micro-level planning for the welfare of the marginalized section of the society. For the purpose of the present study 5 oldest-old female were sampled using S+ random sampling table from each of the 24ward of Medinipur municipal town Religion and mother tongue were never a bar for selecting the participants, but care was taken about the physical and mental alertness of the participants. The nature of research was communicated to the participants and consent was taken from them. Data on the health profiles of the respondents were collected on the basis of the Measurement of Activities of Daily Living (ADL), Self reported ailment and Self reported ailment symptom.