COMPARISION OF DISEASE ACTIVITY AND HEALTH RELATED QUALITY OF LIFE AMONG RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS PATIENTS UNDER AND OVER 60 YEARS

Introduction: Aim of this study was to compare disease activity and QoL between patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) under and over age 60. Materials and Method: One hundred-fifteen RA patients under age 60 and 51 RA patients >= 60 age were enrolled to the study.%Disease activity was assessed by DAS 28 score and QoL was evaluated by Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) and Short-Form 36 (SF-36). Pain, patients' and physicians' global assessment were evaluated by 10 cm Visual Analog Scale (VAS). Results: Ninety (78.2 %) female, 25 (21.7%) male total 115 patients under age 60 with mean age 46.12 +/- 9.39 years and 43 (84,3%) female, 8 (15.7%) male total 51 patients over age 60 with a mean age of 66.72 +/- 5.18 years sum of 161 RA patients were enrolled to the study. There were statistically significant differences in DAS 28 scores (p=0.036), HAQ (p=0.002), and SF 36-physical health (p=0.034) and SF 36-physical function (p=0.001) scores between groups. Conclusion: RA effects all aspects of QoL, especially the physical scores in the elderly RA patients, During the management of the elderly RA patients, we must be taken in to the consideration have worse QoL and disease activity scores in addition to factors like polypharmacy, comorbidity.