A fragilidade em residentes de um condomínio exclusivo para idosos do interior de São Paulo
Resumo
The frailty in elderly people deserves attention, especially with the increase in life expectancy and
the predominance of chronic degenerative diseases during later stages of life. The recent
establishments of condominiums exclusive for elderly people that offer to provide care for their
special needs can be explained by factors like population ageing and worries regarding the availability
of proper housing for elderly people. This study aims to analyze the services and practices offered by
a condominium for elderly people and their relation to the frailty and care needs of the residents. This
is a transversal, exploratory, descriptive, quantitative and qualitative study that took place in a
condominium located in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Semi-structured interviews, the Fried
phenotype of Frailty to evaluate the frailty, Geriatric Depression Scale (short form) to track depressive
symptoms, Katz Index and Lawton and Brody Scale for basic and instrumental activities of daily
living, Mini-Mental State Examination and Clock Test to investigate the cognitive conditions,
Genogram and Ecomap for evaluation of family and social support network were all used to perform
this study. Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, Spearman correlation test and
the Manny Whitney and Kruskarl Wallis’s comparing test groups. Content analysis was performed
to improve quality. There were 28 participants in the study, with an average age of 73.68 years (±
5.95) – most of them female (64,3%). Regarding frailty, 42.9% are pre-frail, and the variables more
related to fragility were physical activity, basic and instrumental activities of daily living and
cognition. Although having families, all the elderly people have a debilitated social network. The
condominium was designed to provide housing for elderly in both social and economic vulnerability
that are still able to live alone, not being structured to meet the needs of elderly people in fragile
conditions. The elderly are presenting pre-frailty condition, and they are becoming frail sooner than
expected. Physical activity, activities of daily life and cognition represent the major factors related to
frailty, compromising the independence of its residents. Therefore, for the condominium, it’s
necessary to choose between stay offering assistance services only for independent and healthy
elderly residents, or modify its entire organization, objectives and inclusion criteria and start offering
services to meet the needs of frail elderly, ensuring a longer permanence of them in their homes.