Quality of life assessment in elderly with dizziness complain

Abstract

Introduction: Elderly individuals have in general a global involvement to health and therefore in the quality of life. One of the symptoms closely related to this loss is the dizziness. Aim: The Dizziness Handicap Inventory (DHI) is a scale widely used in research to evaluate the quality of life in patients with dizziness complaints. It was used in this study to assess the impact of dizziness on the quality of life of elderly community residents. Method: We interviewed 18 patients with dizziness from a group of elderly that works in service station of the Brazilian public health system, the Unified Health System (SUS). We performed a bivariate statistical analysis from the Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney test for a confidence interval of 95%. Results: Prospective study. The mean age of patients was 73.6 years. We found statistical significance when related to the functional aspects of DHI with dizziness and duration of dizziness, and presence of neurovegetative symptoms with emotional aspects and the total score of DHI. There was no statistical significance when comparing the DHI in the presence of tinnitus, hearing loss and comorbidities. Conclusion: Despite the small sample, it appears that dizziness, as well as its duration and the presence of neurovegetative symptoms negatively affected the quality of life in the elderly.