Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the sociodemographic characteristics, depression, quality of life, and unmet medical need in elders with and without limitation of activity by aging or dementia.\nMethod: The data were used for raw data of seventh national health and nutrition examination survey (2016). We compared sociodemographic characteristics, depression, quality of life, and unmet medical needs between elders with limitation of activity by aging or dementia (n = 32) and elders without limitation of activity (n = 1201).\nResult: Elders with limitation of activity were significantly older than elders without limitation of activity (p<.001), income was lower (p<.05) and married status had more bereavement (p<.001).\nThe elders with limitation of activity had higher depression (p<.001) and lower quality of life (p<.001) than elders without limitation of activity. Unmet medical need was greater than elders without limitation of activity (p<.001).\nConclusion: Elders with limitation of activity showed that they did not receive enough medical services than elders without limitation of activity. These results suggest that the welfare system for the health care of population with aging or dementia needs to be improved.