Healthy aging: Of the 985,700 elderly people in domestic households, 93.5% are independent.

About one-tenth of the 985,700 elderly people in domestic households are living alone and 71.6% have chronic diseases, according to a Census & Statistics Department survey.

Conducted in June and August last year, the study found 23.2% of the 985,700 people were aged 60-64, 24% aged 65-69, 21.9% aged 70-74 and 30.9% aged 75 and above. Analysed by sex, 51.2% were women.

About 89.3% were living with other household members, mainly a spouse and children, while 10.7% were living alone. The proportion of the former fell from 94% in the 60-64 age group to 84.4% in the 75-and-over age group, while that for the latter grew from 6% to 15.6%.

Daily living

The survey also showed 93.5% of the 985,700 elderly people were able to perform daily living activities independently, while 6.5% had impairments. About 95.4% of those living alone did not have impairments, 2.1 percentage points higher than those living with household members.

About 706,200 elderly people reported having chronic diseases, with 28.3% having one kind of chronic disease, 21% with two, 11.6% with three and 10.8% with four or more. In terms of household composition, a relatively higher proportion (74.7%) of the elderly who were living alone reported having chronic diseases, probably because the median age of those older people was higher.

The department estimated 417,100 elderly people consulted doctors in the last month, accounting for 42.3% of all older people in domestic households. The corresponding figures for those living alone and with household members were 43.9% and 42.1%.

Medical help

About 71.9% consulted Government practitioners, followed by private practitioners (26.5%) and Chinese medicine practitioners (6%). Analysed by household composition, 78.4% of those living alone consulted Government practitioners, 21% private practitioners and 8.5% Chinese medicine practitioners. The corresponding figures for those who were living with household members were 71.1%, 27.2% and 5.7%.

The survey also showed 143,700 had been admitted to hospital in the last 12 months, accounting for 14.6% of all elderly people in domestic households. About 68.9% had been admitted once, 22.2% twice or three times, and 8.9% four times or more. Their average number of admissions was 1.9.

In terms of household composition, 19.2% of the elderly  people who were living alone had been admitted to hospitals in the last 12 months. The figure for those living with household members was 14%.