Prevalence of Cognitive Dysfunction among Geriatric Population attending Outpatient Departments of Selected Tertiary Hospitals of Pune

Over the last 70 years, life expectancy has increased in India. In 1951, life expectancy at birth was 36.7 years and as per the data of 2012, it is reported to be about 67 years. Resultantly, the proportion of the elderly population in India has risen from 5.6 % in 1961 to 8.5 % in 2011. According to 2016 report by the ministry for statistics and programme implementation, India has 103.9 million elderly, people above age 60, about 8.5 percent population. Indian elderly population is currently the second largest in the world.20 % of illness in the elderly is due to mental or a neurological illness and the most common being dementia and depression. Objectives: The objectives of the study were to assess the prevalence of cognitive dysfunction among geriatric population attending OPDs of selected tertiary hospitals of Pune and associate cognitive dysfunction in geriatric population with selected demographic variables. Methodology A cross sectional descriptive study was conducted in the year 2016-2017 on geriatric population attending Out Patient Departments of selected tertiary hospitals of Pune using a self administered semi structured questionnaire. The questionnaire included section I to collect data on socio demographic data and section II to asses cognitive dysfunction using Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) 7.1 Version. Ethical clearance obtained from Institutional Research Ethical committee. Permission obtained from tertiary hospitals and informed consent was taken. Data collected was analyzed using SPSS 19 and interpreted the cognitive dysfunction levels and their associations with the socio demographic variables. Results 120 samples participated in the study, out of which majority of the sample were (76.7 %) males and 23.3 % were females. The majority of the samples were in the age group 60-70 yrs (61.7 %), and minimum were in the age group of greater than80 (8.3 %). Majority had education up to secondary (66 %). Postgraduates were 5 %.82.5 % were married and 11.7 %widow/widower. Prevalence of cognitive dysfunction was 83 %. On association with the selected socio demographic variables, none of them were found to have statistical significance with cognitive dysfunction of geriatric persons, except the level of education. (pless than 0.001)