Análise da funcionalidade e papéis ocupacionais de idosos institucionalizados e não institucionalizados

Abstract

Functionality is one of the main parameters for evaluating health integrity in the elderly population, with limitations in the elderly's functional capacity being one of the reasons for institutionalization. It is from functionality that the elderly are able to carry out their Activities of Daily Living (ADL) and their occupational roles with autonomy and independence. Occupational roles, in turn, refer to a set of activities performed by individuals that characterize a function or role in the social context, such as the behavior of being a student, family member, worker, friend, religious, hobby/amateur, among others. . It is common for occupational roles to undergo changes throughout life, in order to meet the particular needs of each cycle, as happens with aging, which can cause a disruption in the role of worker after retirement. In this sense, some studies have suggested that the installation of functional impairment generated by the pathology could also lead to changes in the occupational roles of individuals. With this in mind, the main objective of this research was to analyze functionality and occupational roles from the perspective of aging, with institutionalized and non-institutionalized elderly people, seeking to identify differences in variables between the groups. 46 elderly people were evaluated, 23 institutionalized elderly people and 23 non-institutionalized elderly people, using the Functional Independence Measure (MIF) and the Occupational Functions Identification List (LIFO) for data collection. It was found that there are differences in the performance of occupational roles between institutionalized elderly people and non-institutionalized elderly people, mainly explained by the different contexts in which they live. Furthermore, it was clarified that the functionality of institutionalized elderly people is capable of influencing the number of occupational functions currently performed, maintaining a positive correlation of R ≥ 0.455 and p-value ≥ 0.29. In short, this work investigated the occupational roles and functionality of the elderly in two distinct realities, finding differences between the occupational roles of the groups and the influence of the functionality variable on the performance of occupational roles by institutionalized individuals.