Editorial

Editor: A. Abyad

This is the last issue this year of the journal that handle important issues in Geriatrics. A paper from turkey attempted to evaluate the level of sarcopenia of home-dwelling elderly and the attitudes to frailty by asking their relatives, who applied as patients to a family practice in Antalya, Turkey. The study was a cross-sectional study with 1016 patients were asked if they had a frail elderly person at home. Participants, who gave positive answer were further asked questions on frailty level (SARC-F) of their elderly and attitudes concerning frailty at home. Descriptive statistics, Chi-square, and Spearman's rho correlation were used. Sarc-F Total Score was found 5.2 (median=5; SD=1.1; min-max=3-8; n=125). Participants were in agreement with statement "I feel competent in caring for my frail elder", "I would follow the treatment recommendations of my frail patient", "I would seek appropriate supprt for my frail elder", "Immobile, frail elder need home health services", "The family plays an important role in the early diagnosis of frailty", "Mobile technologies play an important role in the care of frail elders", and "Family members play an important role in the care of frail elders". The determination of self-perceived health is an acceptable method for assessment of the person, which might be also useful in caregivers of frail elders. This could certainly help to evaluate unmet health needs of frail elders, who are not able to visit the family physician.
A paper from Kurdistan looked at depression of older people in Kurdistan

Depression in the older people: A perspective from Kurdistan . Elderly population are increasing world-wide. In the next few decades such increase will be more prominent in developing world including Middle Eastern countries. Rate of morbidity is very much age related including depression. Impact of depression on health service is enormous world-wide. The aim of the study to determine the prevalence of depression among elderly people in Kurdistan and identify any relation between depression in that population and gender, age, education level, Economical status, marital status, housing, alcohol use, functional status and history of chronic medical illnesses. The Geriatric Depression Scale -15(GDS-15) was translated to Kurdish and used for assessment of elderly patients, those above the age of 65. The researchers collected data via direct face to face interviews with the patient. 650 elderly subjects were questioned between January and June 2014. 64.2% of the study population scored at least 5 as per geriatric depression scale which is very significant. 22.8% had a score indicating they suffered moderate to severe depression. These finding had not been found in other similar studies in other countries. It was found to be statistically significantly that incidence of depression was higher in those who were older, female, had a higher level of education, from low socioeconomic status, unmarried and with chronic illness. A finding which found in other studies

A review paper from Lebanon and Tunis looked at the fear of falling syndrome as an emerging problem. The authors stressed that over the last two decades a surge of interest in the phenomenon of fear of falling. This paper summarizes current data pertaining to the concept, epidemiology, assessment and management of fear of falling. In addition it elaborate on the relationship of fear of falling to other factors. Fear of falling is a conceivable cause of excess disability and evolving public health problem. Fear of falling has been reported in a high percentage of community-dwelling elderly who both do and don't have a history of falling. The aims of this review are to: (a) elucidate the definition of fear of falling; (b) clarify measurements of fear of falling based on its definition; and (c) describe the risk factors for fear of falling.

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