Life conditions of Sicilian centenarians.

Aim of the study was at furnishing a description of the socio-economic reality of Sicilian centenarians. Informations were taken from the records of Italian Multicentric Study on Centenarians. Randomly selected 28 centenarians (8 males, 20 females), in the age range 100-108 years from Eastern Sicily were examined.

Study on the sense of taste in a group of Sicilian centenarians.

The sense of taste was studied in a group of 20 centenarians from Eastern Sicily, displaying a mini mental state examination (MMSE) score higher than 19. Control subjects were 20 adult (mean age 27.7 +/- 3.

Sense of smell in centenarians from Eastern Sicily.

The sense of smell was studied in a group of centenarians from Eastern Sicily, displaying a mini mental state examination score larger than 19. Analysis of the data demonstrated that centenarians retain the capacity to perceive olfactory stimuli. However, as compared to the results obtained in groups of young and elderly subjects, a statistically significant quantitative reduction (p < 0.

Functional evaluation of a group of centenarians in Eastern Sicily by means of the activity of daily living scale.

A random sample of 28 centenarians was studied (32.56% of all centenarians in Eastern Sicily) within the framework of the Italian Multicenter Study on Centenarians. The activity of daily living (ADL) scale was applied to evaluate their capacity to perform everyday tasks autonomously.

Multiple pathologies and drug consumption in a group of centenarians from Eastern Sicily.

Multiple pathologies are characteristic for the elderly. We evaluated the prevalence of multiple pathologies in 28 randomly selected centenarians living in Eastern Sicily and compared the data with those obtained in another random group of 28 control subjects over 80 years of age. It has been revealed that 25% of the centenarians suffered from 0-3 pathologies, while the remaining 75% displayed more than 3 pathologies.