The main goal of the work was to assess the health status of the long-lived elderly living in the community of a large city. The research was done in the years 2000--2001. In order to make comparisons possible, considered was a randomized sample of Krakow's citizens in the age of 75-80 (258 people) and 90-95 (172 people). The following tools were used in the research: MFAQ (Older Americans Resources and Services Multidimensional Functional Assessment Questionnaire) and commonly accepted scales: Abbreviated Mental Test, Geriatric Depression Scale and Activity of Daily Living Index.
No significant differences in number of chronic diseases reported, in the number of drugs taken and in the level of self-reported depression between the long-lived elderly and people between the ages 75-80, were found. Nevertheless the long-lived elderly more often assess their health status as poor, report disability in vision and hearing, cognition disorders and lower ability to perform activities of daily living. The long-lived women have much worse health status than the long-lived men.
The health-related quality of life of the long-lived elderly is much worse than the quality of life of the people 75-80 y.o. The long-lived women have worse health status than men over 90. The much worse self-reported health status of long-lived elderly seems to be not the result of the number of chronic diseases reported, but is mainly related to the lower level of ADL, more frequent vision and hearing disabilities and cognition disorders present at the age over 90.