Dermatological Disease in the Older Age Group: A Cross-sectional Study in Aged Care Facilities

Date
2015-12-01
Authors
Deo, M
Kerse, N
Vandal, AC
Jarrett, P
Supervisor
Item type
Journal Article
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Publisher
BMJ Publishing Group Limited
Abstract

Background: Older people living in aged care facilities face multiple potential barriers to accessing dermatological care including physical and/or cognitive disability. This group is therefore at risk for undiagnosed and untreated dermatological disease including inflammatory dermatoses and skin cancer. Methods: Two large aged care facilities providing both low level (residential) and high level (hospital) care were selected for this cross-sectional study. Each participant underwent a full dermatological examination. In addition, functional and cognitive status were assessed using the Rehabilitation Complexity Scale and Abbreviated Mental Test score. Results: 88 participants were recruited and 81.8% were found to have at least one significant condition. Inflammatory disease was more common in those with little physical disability compared to those with serious physical disability (odds ratio 3.69; 95% CI 1.1-12.6, p=0.04). No significant association was found between skin disease and cognitive impairment. Conclusion: A high rate of dermatological disease was found. Findings ranged from frequent but not lifethreatening conditions (e.g. onychomycosis), to those associated with a significant morbidity (e.g. eczema, lichen sclerosus and bullous pemphigoid), to potentially life-threatening (e.g. squamous cell carcinoma, melanoma and breast cancer). Those with less significant physical impairment were found to be at greater risk of inflammatory dermatoses. This could be because they receive less direct assistance or prompting from staff with regard to managing

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BMJ Open 2015;5:e009941. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2015-009941
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This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/