relationship between hand grip strength and functional disability of the elderly living in nursing homes in kerman, southeastern iran

original article   introduction: functional disability refers to conditions in which a person is not able to fulfill the daily chores and activities on his/her own or requires assistive devices to perform them. the objective of this study was to investigate the functional disability of the elderly in kerman, southeastern iran and its relationship with handgrip strength. method: this cross-sectional study was conducted on 110 elderly participants (58 man and 52 woman) living in nursing homes in kerman in 2014. data were collected using functional disability standard questionnaire and jamar dynamometer so as to measure grip strengths of the elderly. moreover, data were analyzed by statistical tests at a significance level of 0.05 using spss software. discussion: the measured grip strength of women was significantly lower than that of men (p< 0.05). the grip power of the women in the age group of 60 -70 yrs was approximately equal with the grip power of men in the age group of 90 -100. with age increase, grip strength would decline in both genders. result: there was a strong and direct correlation between functional ability and handgrip strength. in addition, there was a significant relationship between the increase in functional disability of the elderly and decline in their grip strength.