The aging of the world population is a phenomenon that is growing progressively. Specific knowledge of osteoarticular disorders in the elderly in black Africa seems limited.
Describe the epidemiological, clinical and etiological characteristics of non-traumatic osteoarticular disorders in elderly black Africans.
Retrospective and descriptive study concerning black africans patients aged 60 years and over hospitalized in the department of Rheumatology of hospital center of Cocody (Abidjan) in a period of 7 years from January 2000 to December 2007. Were included, 157 records of black africans patients, suffering from a osteoarticular disorder non traumatic with an accurate diagnosis. A structured questionnaire was used to gather epidemiological, clinical and etiological characteristics.
The prevalence of elders was 5% of all patients seen in the period of study. The average age was 67 years with the predominance of women (59,7%) and sex-ratio was 0,68. Housewives were predominant (40,6%). The reason for hospitalization was a pain from spine (85,8%) dominated by common low back pain (84,4%). Fever (51,9%) and impaired general health (53.4%) were dominant extraarticular signs. The main etiologies were degenerative (50.5%) with a predominance of common low back pain (38.2%), followed by bacterial osteitis and/or bacterial arthritis (20.5%) and malignancies (hematologic malignancies and metastasis of cancer) in 15.9% of cases. Degenerative pathology was significantly observed in females (p=0.004).
Non-traumatic osteoarticular diseases in elderly black africans are little frequent in Abidjan and are dominated by degenerative diseases of spine.