Health Status among the Oldest Old: A Case Study

The health status of the oldest-old is also a matter of considerable interest. Measurement of activities of daily living (ADL) is an indicator of an individual's functional capacity, whereas, self-rated health of an individual's perception to his or her own general health, these two are reasonable proxy of health status. Therefore, the author of the paper treat ADL status and self-rated health as two major proxy indicators of the health status of the oldest old in urban areas of Midnapore Municipal Town under Medinipur District of West Bengal. Thus, the present paper aims to measure the activities of daily living (ADL) and self-rated health status of some ‘oldest old’ population living in the urban areas of Paschim Medinipur District of West Bengal, India. However, the ADL functional statuses with respect to eating, dressing, getting in and out of a bed or chair, using the toilet, bathing, and continence have been used to measure the elderly's degree of independence in daily living as well as self-rated health status was evaluated using by five levels such as very good, fairly good, average, fairly poor, or poor. Data on ADL assessments and SRH status of the individual respondent have been collected by interview technique and observation method with the help of structured questionnaire schedules. The study demonstrate that, on average, the female oldest old of the urban area under study enjoy more degree of independence in daily living compared to their male counterparts in the area.