Clock drawing performance and functional ability among the elderly

Present paper is part of the research study entitled Changes in aging: A cohort study, was carried out in Dharwad district of Karnataka state covering the elderly in three age cohorts viz., 60–65, 66–70 and 70+ residing in Dharwad urban and rural area during the year January 2004 to December 2006 covering a total sample of 500 elderly men and women. For the present study, data obtained from a subsample of 125 elderly is taken for analysis. A performance test of Clock drawing was given to a subsample of 125 elderly in order to substantiate the results on cognitive ability obtained in the main sample. The test was given only to the educated elderly in order to rule out effect of education on clock drawing test.

The functional ability was assessed using the self structured interview schedule developed by the researcher. Functional Ability(FA) was further divided into five domains as physical functioning (PF), cognitive functioning (CF), psycho-motor and sensory functioning(PSF), Socio-emotional functioning(SEF) and Behavioural functioning(BF). Indepth interviews were conducted by the researcher using the interview schedule. The data in present paper is obtained by the elderly regarding their perceptions of functional ability. Group discussions were also held with the family members of elderly in order to get a deep insight into data. The validity of the schedule was assessed by circulating the schedule to the experts in the field and the reliability was computed using Guttman's split half method (0.774) based on the data obtained from the pretest sample, then the schedule was modified and then was used for larger sample. The results revealed that, mean scores of clock drawing showed that, gender did not have any influence on clock drawing ability. While, there was statistically significant association between place of residence and ability to draw a clock, the results favoring urban group and respondents from high income group.

The impact of age had significant effect on PF, PSF and CF. There is declining trend in these domains of FA as there is decline in age. Income had a significant impact on physical functioning (at 1 per cent level) and on socio-emotional functioning (at 5 per cent level) of probability. The positive feeling of presence of other spouse has a beneficial effect on all these domains of FA. Gender differences existed for cognitive functioning and behavioral functioning, while for the rest of other domains were not influenced by gender, revealing non-significant differences.