ESPEN 2021 Late Breaking Abstracts

Topic: Nutritional assessment

Abstract Submission Identifier: ESPEN21-LB-2025

MALNUTRITION ASSESSMENT CORRELATED TO FRAILTY SYNDROME IN THE ELDERLY

A. Popescu^*, ¹, G. Soric ¹, F. Lupascu-Volentir ¹, A. Negara ¹

¹“NICOLAE TESTEMITANU” STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDICINE AND PHARMACY, Chisinau, Moldova, Republic of

Rationale: Malnutrition is an important public health problems that is frequently not diagnosed earlier among the institutionalized elderly people, especially with frailty syndrome.The development of malnutrition and loss of functional ability in the elderly can be prevented by evaluation of malnutrition risk.

Methods: The research was planned to be descriptive, correlational, with a total of 50 elderly participants, aged >65 years, the mean value - 73,44±0,38 years.A lot of questionnaires were administered to gather data on demographic characteristics, malnutrition risks, frailty instruments.The nutritional status was determined according to Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) and Frailty syndrome - by Fried criteria. The results were analyzed in the software program Statistics 7.

Results: According examination of MNA score - 40% of the questionnaires were found to have malnutrition risks and 22% being malnourished.The results of the fragility screening by Fried criteria, robust elderly were 14%, pre-fragile elderly - 6% and fragile elderly were 80%.The interrelation of malnutrition syndrome with frailty syndrome and its severity was established by determining the significant correlations of mean values of the MNA score with the criteria of fragility Fried: general weakness (r=-0,62; p<0,05), fatigue (r=-0,59; p<0,05), reduced physical activity (r=-0,63; p<0,05), reduced walking speed (r=-0,53; p<0,05) and weight loss (r=-0,29; p<0,05), but the highest correlation was established between the severity of fragility syndrome, assessed by the Clinical Frailty Scale with mean values of the MNA score (r=-0,70; p<0,05).A statistically negative significant difference was determined between MNA and Frailty index (r=-0,70; p<0,05).

Conclusion: The institutionalized elderly have an increased risk of malnutrition being associated with frailty syndrome and Frailty Index, affecting life quality.

References: no references

Disclosure of Interest: None Declared

Keywords: elderly, frailty syndrome, malnutrition