Objective:To investigate the situation of cognitive ability among people in the elderly housing in Chongqing.Methods:A cross-sectional study was respectively conducted among the elderly people aged 65 years or above sampled from each elderly housing in Chongqing’s eight primary districts.The cluster sampling method was based on the Mini-Mental State Examination(MMSE)

Activity of daily living scale(ADL)

Symptom checklist 90(SCL-90) and demographic questionnaire.Results:In the aspects of gender

profession and education

there were significant differences between the well-being elders and the diseased elders(P<0.05).To compare with the well-being elders

the diseased elders had bad direction-sense

inscribed function breakdown

fall-off of the calculating ability and the memory degradation(8.24±2.79

9.18±1.67;1.70±1.46

2.17±1.14;1.88±1.78

2.41±1.63;0.72±1.10

0.98±1.19

P<0.01、0.05).In the aspect of daily life ability

there were significant differences between the well-being elders and the diseased elders(P<0.01).In the aspect of somatization

anxiety

depression in the symptom checklist 90

there were significant differences between the well-being elders and the diseased elders(P<0.01).To distinguish dementia

according to education level

among the unlettered people and the ones with elementary school level

there were significant differences between the well-being elders and the diseased elders(P<0.01).Conclusion:The cognitive ability of the diseased elders is lower than that of the well-being elders in the elderly housing in Chongqing.