Longterm effects of a social rehabilitation programme for elderly people: physiological predictors and mortality data

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess possible effects on five-year survival rates of a social rehabilitation programme for elderly institutionalized people. A total of 50 elderly people were randomly selected and allocated to either a control group or a social activation intervention group. A number of physiological parameters were assessed as was the initial health status. Five-year mortality rates showed no differences between the control (10 dead out of the original 27) and the intervention group (8/23). The former, however, tended to have a higher relocation rate to geriatric hospitals, 7/27 and 4/23 respectively. Survivors, in general, had lower systolic blood pressure (145 vs 152 mmHg) and lower serum cholesterol (6.0 vs 6.4 mmol/I). The results indicate a need to reassess the assumed beneficial effects on survival of social activation programmes initiated in late life. The study indicates that risk factors for early death from cardiovascular diseases in a younger population (systolic blood pressure and serum cholesterol) also hold true for older institutionalized subjects, with the possible exception for high density lipoprotein- cholesterol (HDL), which showed an inverse relationship to survival. Larger scaled studies are warranted.

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