Due to the advancement of modern medicine and inprovement of the public health service, the average life expectancy has steadily increased. As a result, there is a continuous increase in the number of the popultion of old age groups.
The author had observed outpatients who visited at the Department of Dermatology, Korea University Hospital from 1976 to 1980. During this period, there were 17954 outpatients visited the clinic. Among these, 352 patients were over the age of 65. Our clinical observations on this age groups for skin diseases are compared with the young adult age groups.
The results are as follows:
1. Among the 352 patients of over 65 years of age, 173 patients were male and 179 were female.
2. In the order of frequency, the most common skin disease groups in the old age groups were eczema group (36.5%), fungal infection group(17.9%), viral disease group(11. 4%6), urticaria, drug eruption and toxic erythema group (10. 8%), pruritus group (8.0%) , tumor group (2.6%), and bacterial infection group (1.1%).
3. The skin diseases which showed the highest incidence among the each skin disease groups were contact dermatitis, tinea pedis, herpes zoster, acute urticaria, generalized pruritus, and benign tumor.
4. The results of the comparison between the old age groups and the young adult age groups are as follows:
The old age groups had higher incidence of herpes zoster, pruritus, seborrheic dermatitis, and xerotic eczema than the young adult age groups. Furthermore, the incidence of benign skin tumors was higher in the old age groups.
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