الفهرس 
Aging of SkinOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Skin disease is extremely common and has a significant impact upon every aspect of a person’s life. Many studies revealed that skin problems are common in elderly people, with a significant increase in percentages in those aged 65 to 75 years. The psychosocial problems associated with chronic skin disease are often not addressed that is why Quality of life assessment has been identified as an important measure of the depression that is common and undertreated in patients with chronic skin disease. The most important determinant of quality of life in elderly with chronic skin disease is GDS and ADL score.
This thesis was conducted among elderly suffering from chronic skin diseases to assess their impact on the quality of life.
A case-control study was performed on 100 elderly subjects (60 years old and above), male and female they were divided into two groups:
Case group: 50 elderly patients diagnosed with chronic skin disease (by history and examination).
Control group: 50 elderly subjects without chronic skin disease.
Both groups were recruited from out-patient clinics at Ain Shams University Hospital.
The 100 elderly people were subjected to comprehensive geriatric assessment including personal history, past medical history, cognitive assessment using mini mental state examination (MMSE), depression assessment using geriatric depression scale (GDS), functional assessment using the activities and instrumental activities of daily living (ADL and IADL), complete physical examination.
Quality of life assessment was accomplished using two questionnaires (i) PCASEE questionnaire assessing the physical, social, cognition, affective, economic and ego domains; (ii) Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) questionnaire assessing disability with respect to symptoms, daily activities, personal relationships, work, leisure and treatment, thus providing a blanket measurement of impairment of evryday functioning.
This study shows that the QOL in patients with chronic skin diseases is reduced compared with the control group and that the quality of life is negatively associated with extent of skin disease and also related to type of skin disease.
Also it is clear that chronic skin diseases affect the psychosocial domains of QOL far more than the physical and cognitive domains and further analysis explained this by showing that chronic skin diseases impair QOL mainly through depression and inability to perform daily activities (ADL).
Furthermore, the disabled and depressed chronic skin disease patients have poor quality of life than non disabled and non depressed patients and there is also a correlation between the severity of skin disease and depression, the patients with extensive skin disease were even more depressed and disabled.
This study also suggests that the presence of other co-morbid medical conditions with chronic skin disease has no role in affection of QOL in those patients and has no effect in different domains of quality of life of those patients.
It appears that the early diagnosis and treatment of depression in elderly chronic skin disease patients as a modifiable risk factor for impairment of quality of life in those patients is highly essential, the prevention of disability in elderly chronic skin disease to improve the psychosocial status and quality of life of those patients is recommended as an important step in the therapeutic plan of management of those patients.