Sousa-Catita D, Bernardo MA, Santos CA, Silva ML, Mascarenhas P, Godinho C, Fonseca J. Comparing Assessment Tools as Candidates for Personalized Nutritional Evaluation of Senior Citizens in a Nursing Home.
Nutrients 2021;
13:nu13114160. [PMID:
34836415 PMCID:
PMC8623379 DOI:
10.3390/nu13114160]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/25/2021] [Revised: 11/16/2021] [Accepted: 11/18/2021] [Indexed: 01/10/2023] Open
Abstract
Nutrition is an important health issue for seniors. In nursing homes, simple, inexpensive, fast, and validated tools to assess nutritional risk/status are indispensable. A multisurvey cross-sectional study with a convenient sample was created, comparing five nutritional screening/assessment tools and the time required for each, in order to identify the most useful instrument for a nursing home setting. Nutrition risk/status was evaluated using the following tools: Subjective Global Assessment (SGA), Mini Nutritional Assessment Short Form (MNA-SF), Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST), Nutritional Risk Screening 2002 (NRS 2002), and calf girth (CG). The time spent completing each tool was recorded. Eighty-three subjects were included. MNA-SF and CG were the screening tools that ranked highest with regards to malnutrition identification. CG failed to identify nutritional risk/malnutrition in seniors with lower limb edema. CG was the fastest tool while SGA was the slowest. This was the first study comparing non-invasive nutritional tools with time expended as a consideration in the implementation. CG is responsive, fast, and reliable in elders without edema. MNA-SF was more efficient at detecting malnutrition cases in the elderly population. Both MNA-SF and CG are considered the most suitable for the nursing home setting.
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