Geriatrics Commons^™

Why Didn’T I Know? Perspectives From Adult Children Of Elderly Parents With Dementia, Debbie Conner, Julie Postma, Catherine Van Son

All Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Purpose: Approximately 27 million adults are living with undiagnosed dementia worldwide. The purpose of this study was to learn about the experiences of adult children of elderly parents who were ultimately diagnosed with dementia.

Data sources: A descriptive qualitative design was used for identifying if there were prodromal signs or symptoms that preceded the more commonly known warning signs of dementia. Twelve, 60-min interviews were conducted over the telephone.

Conclusions: The overarching theme was: “Why didn't I know?” Subthemes were “We ignored it because we didn't want it to be,” “We thought it was grief,” and “They wouldn't diagnose dementia.” …

Health And Needs Assessment Of Geriatric Patients: Results Of A Survey At A Teaching Hospital In Karachi, Syed Nabeel Zafar, Hammad Ashraf Ganatra, Sarah Tehseen, Waris Qidwai

Department of Family Medicine

Objective: To study the health and needs of geriatric patients

Methods: A questionnaire based survey of patients visiting the out-patient department of Aga Khan University was carried out. Ethical requirements were met and included administration of informed consent and provision of confidentiality to patients. Convenience sampling was used without any randomization for interviews. Epi-info and SPSS software were used for data management.

Results: Four hundred and two (402) subjects above the age of 65 were surveyed. Most of the subjects were retired (40.5%) married (76.4%) men (69.7%). Ages ranged from 65 to 90 years, the mean being 70.57 years and …