Interests of individual activities in elderly institutionalized persons

Introduction: The elderly is an important period of human growth. The elderly persons have their own needs and individual interests. Social and cultural cognition models respect to the elderly persons should be recognized. The purpose of this study was to determine the items on interests on individual activities in the elderly person. Materials and Methods: This is a descriptive-analytical study. The interest checklist was administered to 80 elderly between 65-85 years. The subjects resided in 8 Institutionalized places in Tehran, sponsored by Tehran Welfare Organization. The items on the interests checklist empirically cluster in to the 3 categories of interests described by Matsutsuyua and Klyczek tool. Results: The results indicated the 3 categories of individual activities that most in the activities daily living set including, the attention to appearance and dressing, shopping and the women were interesting in cooking of (more than 80%). The most interests in the cultural - educational set activities, including religious studies, attending in lectures, scientific studies, saying the prays and men the concert and historical studies (more than 80%). The most interests in the physical activities set including working- out, body building and the men swimming (more than 70%). Conclusion: The results of the present study suggest that the elderly of both sex interested in some activities including activities daily living, educational-cultural and physical exercises. Also some different interests observed between male and female subjects, i.e. males interested in swimming, concert, study of chronological and females interested in cooking