Physical Health Problems of Elderly in Rural Haryana: A Sociological Study

Ageing is defined as a natural and universal phenomenon which begins from the birth of an individual and continues till death. After the birth, an individual gradually crosses the various stages of life and finally dies due to ageing. Each stage of human life is associated with certain hopes, aspirations and achievements and at the last in the old age; the man tries to find out the last query of his life. It refers to the physical changes in the human body which decline the normal functions of the body resulting in the poor mobility, vision, hearing, inability to eat and digest food properly, the decline in memory, inability to control certain physiological functions, and various chronic conditions. Population ageing is a global phenomenon that is both inevitable and predictable. The term elderly includes the aged, elder and older people. The social, biological and psychological changes that occur in last stage of life are termed as ageing. The present study was conducted to investigate the physical health status of rural elderly. The study was conducted in Hisar and Mahendragarh district of Haryana State on 360 rural elderly who were selected randomly from Hisar and Kanina Block. Physical health problems were reported were visual and hearing impairment, joint stiffness, dental problem and other morbidities like hyper tension, diabetes, asthma, etc. It was found that on an average 55.8 per cent respondents were having average physical health status where as 41.7 per cent were having good and 2.5 per cent were having poor physical health status.