Cognitive deterioration and associated factors in rural elderly adults

Abstract

Cognitive Impairment is a clinical condition between normal aging and a probable dementia process, generally manifested by memory loss greater than expected for the age, without meeting the established diagnostic criteria for Alzheimer’s disease. This disease usually occurs in elderly people whose demographic, medical and functional characteristics are generally poor, the foregoing attributed mostly in rural contexts. The objective of the present study was to identify the factors associated with cognitive impairment in a group of senior citizens from a rural context through a quantitative, cross-sectional and descriptive methodological design, with a primary source of information, in 266 older adults living in the rural area of the municipality of La Unión, Nariño, using convenience sampling. For the inclusion criteria, the following aspects were taken into account: being an adult aged 60 years or more, belonging to the Elderly Program of this municipality, which is a social assistant program for elderly people created by the Colombian Government, and also voluntarily accepting participation in the study and signing the informed consent. The exclusion criteriawere the presence of some medical, cognitive and functional implication that prevented the application of the protocol. © 2021, Interdisciplinaria. All Rights Reserved.