Turkish Journal of
GERIATRICS

Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi, Aile Hekimliği A.D., Isparta
Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi, Kalp ve Damar Cerrahisi A.D., Isparta It's known that in elderly patients, cardiac surgical procedures improve patient's quality .of life SF-36 test obtains important information on evaluation about the patient's quality of life who have undergone heart surgical proceduresSF-36 has been widely used in many areas of medicine. It has shown to be a useful method in assessment of life quality and outcome measurement. One of the most frequently usage area of this questionnaire is cardiovascular surgery Our purpose was to measure the functional status of the patients who had undergone cardiac surgery and to evaluate the impact of surgery on the quality of life Between January 2001 and March 2001 in Sevket Demirel Heart Center, Suleyman Demirel University Medical School, Short From (SF) 36 questionnaire was applied to forty consecutive patients older than 65 who had undergone coronary bypass operation in preoperative period and at the first month postoperatively. We prospectively studied forty consecutive patients and assessments were made by physical, clinical, laboratory findings and the short-form (sf)-36, at preoperatively and one month after the surgery . Patients were requested to fill tl1e questionnaires by themselves. In addition, patients were evaluated preoperatively and postoperatively by medical history, physical examination and laboratory data. Patients who have died following operation excluded from the study. Average ages of 40 patients in the study was 68.3 ± 3,25 (between 65 and 73) being 21 male (52.5%) and 19 female (47.5%). Preoperative and postoperative scores were; for general health condition 17.1 ± 6.2 / 21.5 ±3.3, for social functioning 7.5 ± 5.4 / 9.4 ± 4.3. for emotional role 4.3 ± 6.8 / 5.7 ± 6.0, for physical functioning 24.9 ± 4.28 / 28.6 ± 6.2 and for physical role 5.6 ± 1.9 / 7.1 ± 5.5 respectively. Results were found to be statistically significant (p<0.01). Significant improvements were seen in mental health, social functioning, physical role emotional status, vitality and bodily pain. The improvements in physical functioning and role were also significant. We found that cardiac surgery substantially improves the quality of life, especially bodily pain, mental health, vitality and social functioning. We believe that, results of our study would be helpful [0 persons who are dealing with rehabilitation, in terms of indicating in which areas patients have limitations. This kind of measures that we believe them to guide us in our further studies are necessarily to be performed as tl1ey obtain very useful information about how patients perceive tl1eir disease and their status following treatment. In addition, these measures evaluate patient's quality of life and their satisfaction trustworthy. Keywords : quality of life, SF-36,elderly, coronary bypass surgery