HANDEDNESS, FAMILIAL SINISTRALITY AND PHYSICAL HEALTH PROBLEMS AMONG ELDERLY RURAL POPULATION
Keywords:
Keywords, - Handedness, - The hand used by the subject or person for writing, eating and throwing.Abstract
The main objectives of the study were to find the relationship between handedness and various health problems like allergy, blood pressure, heart disease, migraine, typhoid, back pain, diabetes etc. among elderly rural population and to find whether familial sinistrality exits or not in elderly rural population. 126 elderly subjects (64 male and 62 female) were purposively selected for the study. The mean age of the subjects was 54.84 with S.D. 10.02. To measure the handedness, the Steenhuis and Bryden (1989)’s five point scale handedness questionnaire was used and to measure the various health problems, a modified version of Geschwind and Behan (1982) Health Problem Questionnaire was used. Each subject was tested individually. Results showed that there are 9.5% left handers in rural elderly population. Handedness was found to be significantly correlated with chewing finger nail (r= -0.201) and numbness in body or its part (r= -0.205). Handedness was found to be significant with chewing finger-nail (χ2 = 5.09) and numbness in body or its part (χ2 = 5.29). Though the percentage of left handers in left handed families is higher (33%) than that of right handed families (30%), but this difference is not significant. On the basis of the results it can be concluded that there are 9.5% left hander in elderly population. Out of 17 physical health problems studied, only chewing finger nail and numbness in body or its part is significantly correlated with handedness, mean more common in left handers than that of right handers. The phenomenon of familial sinistrality is not found in elderly rural population.
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