ACTIVITIES OF DAILY LIVING, COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT AND OTHER PSYCHOLOGICAL SYMPTOMS AMONG ELDERLY RECIPIENTS OF HOME HELP

Previous studies have shown a relationship between physical functionin g and having home help. The hypothesis behind this study, carried out on a random community sample of 168 subjects aged 75 years and above, was that having home help would also be associated with cognitive impa irment and psychological symptoms. Bivariate analysis showed that cogn itive impairment was significantly more frequent among home help clien ts, whereas indicators of anxiety and depression were not. After multi variate adjustment, living alone, poor perceived health, problems in p erforming primary activities of daily living (ADL), instrumental ADL a nd, in particular, experiencing difficulties in cleaning the house rem ained the only variables independently related to having home help. Of these, difficulties with cleaning the house was the most powerful pre dictor. The home help seems to be used mainly to compensate for impair ed mobility. An association between cognitive functioning and the prov ision of home help is related to a limitation in the ability to perfor m ADL associated with cognitive impairment.