Prevalence and factors associated with sarcopenia among Brazilian older adults: An exploratory network analysis.

Objectives: This study aimed to verify the prevalence of sarcopenia and its associations with sociodemographic, clinical and psychological factors in community-dwelling older adults.

Study Design: A randomized cross-sectional study was extracted from a probabilistic cluster conducted on individuals aged 65 years or older residing in the community.

Methods: Sarcopenia was defined according to the criteria of the European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People (EWGSOP2).

"PCATool version to professionals in the primary care of the elderly": adaptation, content analysis and first results.

The objective of this study was to adapt the instrument "Primary Care Assessment Tool (PCATool)-professional version" to measure the performance of the care provided by Primary Health Care (PHC) to the health of the elderly, from the perspective of professionals. The original instrument was critically analyzed by specialists with experience in Gerontology and PHC in relation to the health specificities of the elderly, with 64 syntactic-semantic adaptations and 28 inclusions of new parameters. The adapted instrument was applied to 105 health professionals from PHC in Campinas-SP and, compared to the original instrument, the adaptation proved to be able to distinguish the new parameters with statistically significant differences, and in the sample of the analyzed professionals the performance obtained was better avaliated in relation to "Accessibility" and "Comprehensiveness" attributes, and worse avaliated in the attributes "Longitudinality", "Coordination", "Essential and General Scores".

Relationship between radiological severity and physical and mental health in elderly individuals with knee osteoarthritis.

Background: This study aimed to investigate the relationship between radiological severity, as assessed by the individual grades and grouped grades (grades "0 and 1" and "2 to 4") of the Kellgren-Lawrence scale (K&Ls), and depression symptoms, cognitive loss, risk of falls, and quality of life in relation to knee osteoarthritis, as assessed by other instruments.

Methods: Data recorded between 2013 and 2014 in Amparo (São Paulo, Brazil) were retrieved for analysis. A total of 181 elderly patients who had knee osteoarthritis and underwent a radiologic exam were evaluated for depressive symptoms, cognitive loss, quality of life, and risk of falls by the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC), timed up and go test (TUG), and Berg balance scale (BBS).

Association between Knee Osteoarthritis and Metabolic Syndrome in Non-Institutionalized Elderly Patients.

 This study aimed to analyze the association between knee osteoarthritis (OA) and metabolic syndrome (MS) in non-institutionalized elderly patients.  A cross-sectional, randomized study, drawn from a probabilistic cluster study conducted with 416 elderly people from a Family Health Unit (USF, in the Portuguese acronym) of our municipality. Metabolic syndrome was defined according to the National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III (NCEP-ATP III), and OA according to the Kellgren-Lawrence (KL) scale (≥ 2).

Body composition as a frailty marker for the elderly community.

Background: Body composition (BC) in the elderly has been associated with diseases and mortality; however, there is a shortage of data on frailty in the elderly.

Objective: To investigate the association between BC and frailty, and identify BC profiles in nonfrail, prefrail, and frail elderly people.

Methods: A cross-sectional study comprising 235 elderly (142 females and 93 males) aged ≥65 years, from the city of Amparo, State of São Paulo, Brazil, was undertaken.

Mortality in Brazilian community-dwelling older adults: 7 years of follow up in primary care.

Aim: To describe the main causes and factors associated with mortality in community-dwelling older adults in a county where the public health system covers most of the population.

Methods: We analyzed data from an existing cross-sectional study of 2209 participants (age ≥60 years) in a city in southeast Brazil where 92% of the population is served by a public system of primary care. Over a period of 7 years, 386 participants died and were included in the sample.

WOMAC and SF-36: instruments for evaluating the health-related quality of life of elderly people with total hip arthroplasty. A descriptive study.

Context And Objectives: Quality-of-life results have increasingly been evaluated among patients undergoing joint replacements. The objective of this study was to compare two assessment instruments for health-related quality of life (one generic and the other specific), among elderly patients undergoing total hip arthroplasty.

Design And Setting: Cross-sectional descriptive study in a reference hospital in the region of Campinas.

Impact of rheumatic diseases and chronic joint symptoms on quality of life in the elderly.

Musculoskeletal disorders are the major causes of the pain in the elderly population. Rheumatic conditions restrict participation in activities and mobility, as well as cause difficulties in the execution of self-care tasks. The assessment of health related quality of life (HRQOL) is an important indicator of the impact of rheumatic diseases on the physical, mental and social aspects.

Falls in the elderly of the Family Health Program.

This study aims to determine the factors that may be related to falls in the elderly assisted by the Family Health Program (FHP). Elderly individuals aged 60 years or over, who were assisted by the FHP primary care system (n=2209), responded to a sociodemographic and health questionnaire. Mental health was evaluated using the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) and quality of life was assessed by the Medical Outcome Study Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36).

Factors of high impacts on the life of caregivers of disabled elderly.

Elderly caregivers suffer physical and psychological consequences of the act of caring. The objective of this study was to characterize primary caregivers of elderly people in the community and identify the higher impacts of this activity on their life. We interviewed 127 caregivers about sociodemographic characteristics, presence of anxiety/depression (self-reporting questionnaire=SRQ), burden of care (caregiver burden scale=CBS); while their dependents were evaluated using sociodemographic questionnaires, health history, activities of daily living (ADL) scale and geriatric depression scale (GDS-15).

Sensory interaction on static balance: a comparison concerning the history of falls of community-dwelling elderly.

Aim: To determine whether elderly subjects with distinct histories of falls presented differences concerning the influence of sensory interaction on balance.

Methods: Cross-sectional research. Ninety-six community-dwelling elderly subjects were divided into three groups, according to the history of falls within the past year (group 1, no falls; group 2, one fall; and group 3, recurrent falls).