跳至主要内容

Malnutrition Reduces Quality of Life and Performance in Hospitalized Elderly

Malnutrition is a disorder of nutritional status due to reduced nutrient intake or impaired metabolism. It comprises a broad spectrum of clinical conditions from mild to very severe and has serious implications for health, recovery from illness or surgery, and hospital costs. Malnutrition has been frequently described among the elderly in hospital patients; this condition is often underestimated and considered as one of the aspects of aging. In this paper, the authors measured the incidence of malnutrition and its consequences on general health, physical and mental performance in a cohort of elderly patients. 

A cross-sectional study was conducted in a geriatric inpatient unit. Three hundred patients admitted to the clinic who fulfilled the inclusion criteria were enrolled. Nutritional status was evaluated by Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) questionnaire, macro and micronutrients intake, anthropometric measures and biochemical parameters. Physical and mental performances were recorded by questionnaires. Muscular strength was measured by a hand dynamometer and clinical outcomes were recorded.

Patients with poor nutritional status have lower physical and mental performance as respect to well-nourished patients. Undernourished patients have longer hospitalization and worst outcomes. We observe a high prevalence of severe hypovitaminosis D and the intake of various micronutrients was severely unbalanced. The incidence of malnutrition was 25% (75 patients); 39% (119 patients) were at risk of malnutrition. MNA was inversely related with the length of hospital stay (R = -0.25, p = 0.012) and with Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) (R = -0.56, p = 0.000), whereas directly related with cognitive performance measured through Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) (R = 0.5, p = 0.000) and hand grip strength (R = 0.35, p = 0.000). 

In conclusion, it’s shown that malnutrition has an important role in determining elderly independence, physical and mental performance and in predicting health outcomes, hence the hospital teams have to pay great attention to this problem even in community dwelling elderly.
                                      

Article by Patrizia D’Amelio, et al, from Italy.

Full access: http://mrw.so/4x3PIp

评论

发表评论

此博客中的热门博文

Electron Spin and Proton Spin in the Hydrogen and Hydrogen-Like Atomic Systems

Read full paper at: http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=52202#.VIj7tMnQrzE Author(s) Stanisław Olszewski * Affiliation(s) Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland . ABSTRACT The mechanical angular momentum and magnetic moment of the electron and proton spin have been calculated semiclassically with the aid of the uncertainty principle for energy and time. The spin effects of both kinds of the elementary particles can be expressed in terms of similar formulae. The quantization of the spin motion has been done on the basis of the old quantum theory. It gives a quantum number n = 1/2 as the index of the spin state acceptable for both the electron and proton ...
发表评论
阅读全文

Remarks on the Complexity of Signed k-Domination on Graphs

Read  full  paper  at: http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=53574#.VMnXsCzQrzE Author(s)    Chuan-Min Lee 1 , Cheng-Chien Lo 1 , Rui-Xin Ye 2 , Xun Xu 2 , Xiao-Han Shi 2 , Jia-Ying Li 2 Affiliation(s) 1 Department of Computer and Communication Engineering, Ming Chuan University, The First American University in Asia, Taoyuan, Taiwan, Chinese Taipei . 2 Department of Electronic Information Engineering, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, China . ABSTRACT This paper is motivated by the concept of the signed k-domination problem and dedicated to the complexity of the problem on graphs. For any fixed nonnegative integer k, we show that the signed k-domination problem is NP-complete for doubly chordal graphs. For strongly chordal graphs and distance-hereditary graphs, we show that the signed k-domination problem can be solved in polynomial time. We also show that the problem is linear-time solvable for trees, interval graphs, and chord...
发表评论
阅读全文

A Review of Technical Requirements for High Penetration of Wind Power Systems

Read full paper at: http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=52361#.VJN8VcCAM4 Author(s)    Yuan-Kang Wu 1 , Tung-Ching Lee 2 , Ting-Yen Hsieh 2 , Wei-Min Lin 2 Affiliation(s) 1 Department of Electrical Engineering, National Chung-Cheng University, Chiayi, Taiwan . 2 Green Energy and Environment Research Laboratories, Industrial Technology Research Institute, Hsinchu, Taiwan . ABSTRACT Renewable portfolio targets have been established in many regions around the world. Regional targets such as 20% renewable energy by year 2020 are not uncommon. As the levels of wind power penetration increase, there are many power system impacts. This work investigated possible challenges and technic...
发表评论
阅读全文