Another important finding of this study was the identification of chronic respiratory diseases as the main contributor to the severe disability burden among men in all age groups. Although chronic respiratory diseases have been previously related to difficulty in mobility and in the performance of ADLs [10, 39, 41, 42] our findings suggest that chronic respiratory diseases are also an important cause of dependence in men. The relation of chronic respiratory diseases with dependence in ADLs was previously reported, and an increase with age and disease severity was observed [43