Background: Ageing is among the greatest known risk factors for most human diseases. It is associated with a lot of health challenges. There is scarcity of literature on otological diseases in the elderly patients in our environment. Thus this study was done to document the pattern of otological diseases amongst elderly patients as seen in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. The knowledge from this study will help healthcare policy makers in their planning and delivering of healthcare services to the senior citizens of Nigeria as well as promote cost effective treatment of their otological diseases.Patients and Methods: This is a 15 years retrospective review of patients aged 60 years and above seen between January 2001 and December 2015 at the Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) Surgery Department of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH). The following patients' data were documented and analyzed for age, gender, clinical presentation, investigations, diagnosis and treatment modalities. The data were entered into SPSS version 16 computer software and analyzed descriptively.Results: A total of 1,512 patients out of patient population of 22,800 were found to be 60 years and above. The geriatric population was thus 6.63% of our total patients. Otological problems accounted for 846 (55.95%) cases. Cerumen auris was the commonest otological (n=255, 30.14%) presentations, followed by Otomycosis Externa (n=236, 27.89%), presbyacusis (n=205, 24.23%) and CSOM (n=94, 11.11%). Conclusion:This study has established the pattern of otological diseases amongst the elderly patients as seen recently in our environment and this does not differ from what has been reported elsewhere. Majority of the patients had cerumen auris. We therefore recommend that more facilities & resources be provided to take care of the otological diseases of the elderly in our environment.

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Background: Studies from Rivers State have demonstrated high burden of drug resistance among pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) patients and declining cure rate despite adequate treatment retention and highly effective directly observed treatment short-course. Aim: to explore the perception of clients on how PTB disease or its treatment affect their health (health-related quality of life), which could impact on TB treatment success rate among clients with PTB. Methods: A total of 225 adult clients with PTB were recruited by systematic random sampling method from each of the 8 randomly selected centers out of 40 active treatment centers in Obio/Akpor LGA of Rivers State. The SF 36 was used to collect responses which were grouped into 8 domains yielding 2 summary measures. Scores ≤49 were classified as poor, 50-74 relatively favourable and good for scores ≥75. Categorical data were presented as frequencies and proportions using tables and pie charts while quantitative data were presented as means and standard deviations. Results: Specific domains mean scores ranged from 34.9±33.7 (role physical) to 61.8±11.9 (general health) while physical component summary (PCS) and mental component summary (MCS) recorded 53.35±16.79 and 51.11±12.26 respectively. The overall HRQoL mean score for the study was 55.2 (± 3.6) with an undesirable score of 20.7%. Conclusion: Pulmonary tuberculosis patients in treatment centers in Obio / Akpor LGA had poor to relatively favourable HRQoL mean scores. Strengthening counselling practice may help improve support for the clients in coping with the disease and the effect of its treatment.