In today´s population status, we can see the growth in number of the aged persons who are over 65 years and this is occurring all over the world.
With this growth in number of the aged, there arises the problems in social, economical and psychiatric fields. Realizing these problems, there are many efforts being made to solve them.
The author has intended to study the aged on their status of the mental health and has done this by comparing the aged of urban and rural areas.
The author has come up with the following conclusions.
1. As to the age distribution, there was the greatest number of the aged in range of 65-74 year olds.
2. As to the educational background, the aged persons in general showed low educational level, and the aged of rural area had lower level than the aged of urban area and the aged females had lower level than the aged males.
3. As to their present occupation, 94.7% of the aged of urban area were unemployed, whereas 62.9% of the aged of rural area held farming jobs.
4. As to their religion, there were the heighest of-believers in buddism and held more belief in the aged of urban than the aged of rural area.
5. As to the use of leizure time, both of the aged of urban and rural areas spent most of their time doing housework, watching T.V. and chatting with their friends.
6. As to the structure of their family, there were greater number of the aged females who lost their spouse than the aged males and also there were greater number of the aged of rural area(83.3%) living with their offsprings than the aged of urban area (77.0%) .
7. As to the physical complaints, about half (49.4%) of the aged of urban and rural ,areas showed non-specific complaints.
The most frequent complaint was on musculoskeletal problems and this complaint was found more frequently in the aged of rural area than the aged of urban area.
8. As to the organic disorder, only the aged females of rural area showed borderline state.
9. As to the affective disorder and neuroses, only the males of rural area showed borderline state and the rest of the aged showed somewhat high degree of these disorders. These were especially high in the aged males of urban area.
10. As to the affective disorder, depression was the most frequent one among the aged persons and the aged males of urban area were suffering from depression most frequently.
Also there were more the aged of urban area suffering from the irritability and tension or anxiety than the aged of rural area.
11. As to the sleep disorder, early morning awakening was the most frequent one among the aged person. Although there was sleep disorder actually, the aged persons, especially the aged of rural area, didn´t accept it as troubled one.
12. As to the schizophrenia and paranoid state, no one was suffering from these psychotic states in this study.
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