Functionality and quality of life in elderly patients with chronic pain in São Carlos

Abstract

Chronic pain is one of the problems that hinder considerably the independence of the elderly as well as performing their daily functions, which can lead to decreased quality of life for ourselves. The goal of this study is to verify the functionality and quality of life of the elderly population in the Unified Health System (SUS) and discuss the importance of public policies in pain care and maintenance of the functionality of the elderly. Will be evaluated 50 volunteers aged 60 or older, of both gender, living in the city of São Carlos and who are treated at Basic Health Units (BHU) and Family Health Units (USF). The participants will form two groups, and 25 will be part of the group of elderly patients with chronic pain (GIDC) and 25 will be part of the group of elderly people without chronic pain (GISD). When reporting pain in any region of the body, there are more than six months old will be included in the GIDC and not report pain for more than one or three months will be included in GISD. Initially volunteers will undergo a baseline evaluation for the purpose of capturing personal data, anthropometric, previous history historical, family and current disease and subsequently respond to the questionnaires: FIM (Functional Independence Measure) and WHOQOL (World Health Organization Quality of Life Instrument) , the latter is applied in versions specific to the elderly population (WHOQOL-OLD) and the abbreviated version (WHOQOL-BREF). Descriptive analyzes and statistics are the ways to analyze the results. Statistical analysis will be performed using the Mann-Whitney nonparametric, with significance set at p d 0.05.(AU)