Assessing Nutritional Status and Functionality in Geriatric Population of Bangladesh: The Hidden Epidemic of Geriatric Malnutrition

Frailty, polypharmacy, malnutrition, chronic conditions, and quality of life in the elderly: Large population-based study

BACKGROUND

Aging, a significant public health issue, is associated with multiple concurrent chronic diseases and aging-related conditions (geriatric syndromes).

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the impact of age and chronic conditions on geriatric syndromes and the intercorrelations between multiple geriatric syndromes and quality of life (QoL) in the elderly (≥65 years) at the population level.

METHODS

A large representative sample was randomly selected from a county with 17 towns and 811,867 residents, with multiple chronic conditions, geriatric syndromes (frailty, polypharmacy, and malnutrition), and QoL assesses and compared between geriatric and nongeriatric populations and among subgroups of the elderly. Associations of demographic information and chronic conditions with geriatric conditions and QoL in the elderly were assessed using multivariable-adjusted logistic regression. Intercorrelations between age, multiple geriatric syndromes, and QoL were investigated using both correlation analysis and restricted cubic splines (RCS)-based multivariable-adjusted dose-response analysis.

RESULTS

Elderly people comprised 43.4% of the whole population, and prevalence of frailty, (pre-)malnutrition, polypharmacy, and impaired QoL among the elderly (median age, 73 years; male proportion, 51.0%) was 8.3%, 15.6%, 3.2%, and 10.8%, respectively. Prevalence of geriatric syndromes mostly did not significantly differ among different age subgroups of the elderly (except that frailty occurred more often with older age) or by gender. (Pre-)malnutrition was significantly associated with less often obesity and more frequent constipation, polypharmacy with more often diabetes and constipation, frailty with more frequent constipation and hernia, and impaired QoL with more often hypertension, diabetes, physical disability, and constipation. MNA-SF, GFI, and EQ-5D-5L scores and number of drugs used mostly significantly predicted the other geriatric syndromes and QoL. Impaired QoL was significantly associated with more often frailty, (pre-)malnutrition, and polypharmacy, and frailty with more frequent (pre-)malnutrition and polypharmacy. At 1.5-year follow-up, impaired QoL was significantly linked to polypharmacy and frailty at baseline; (pre-)malnutrition was significantly associated with frailty at baseline; polypharmacy was significantly linked to frailty at baseline; frailty was significantly linked to both (pre-)malnutrition and polypharmacy at baseline. Causal mediation analyses showed that frailty mediated the linkage between polypharmacy and worse QoL, and also that polypharmacy mediated the linkage between frailty and worse QoL.

CONCLUSIONS

In this large population-based study of the elderly with prospective follow-up, multiple chronic conditions were associated with one or more of the investigated geriatric syndromes. Geriatric syndromes were mostly significantly intercorrelated with and well predictive of each other and QoL, and there existed causal relationships between geriatric syndromes and QoL with other geriatric syndromes being mediators. The findings might be subject to some bias due to residual confounding factors not available in the dataset. It would be important to perform personalized geriatric syndromes stratified by chronic conditions, and active prevention or intervention of any syndrome might help to reduce the others and improve QoL.

CLINICALTRIAL

Nutritional status of hospitalized elderly patients in Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study of an important yet neglected problem in clinical practice

Background

Malnutrition is a common geriatric syndrome affecting approximately half of the older population with a more pronounced occurrence rate in those hospitalized. It affects the physiology, and results in poor humanistic and clinical outcomes. In Africa, particularly in Ethiopia, albeit multiple studies are available on malnutrition in non-hospitalized older population, similar studies in inpatient settings are scarce. Therefore, this study was conducted with the intention to quantify the prevalence of malnutrition in older patients on inpatient admission and determine its associated factors.

Methods

A total of 157 older inpatients aged 60 years and above were included in the present study. The data collection format was developed after an in-depth review of relevant literatures. The full Mini-Nutritional Assessment (MNA) tool was employed to assess the nutritional status on admission. Data completeness was checked thoroughly. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression analysis were conducted using STATA 15.0. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC), Hosmer-Lemeshow test, and classification table were computed to evaluate the final model goodness-of-fit.

Results

Of the total study subjects, 81% were malnourished (MNA score <17) and 17% were at risk for malnutrition (MNA score of 17.5-23.5). However, upon review of the patients' medical charts, malnutrition diagnosis was recorded in only two patients. Rural residence (AOR = 2.823, 95%CI: 1.088, 7.324), self-reported financial dependence for expenses (AOR = 4.733, 95%CI: 1.011, 22.162), and partial dependence in functional autonomy on admission (AOR = 3.689, 95%CI: 1.190, 11.433) significantly increased the risk of malnutrition. The area under the ROC curve (0.754) and the Hosmer-Lemeshow test (p = 0.7564) indicated that the final model reasonably fits the data. The model`s sensitivity is 96.85%.

Conclusion

In the present study, an alarmingly high prevalence of malnutrition was identified older inpatients. The problem went undiagnosed in a similar percentage of patients. Several available literatures indicate the presence of an association between nutritional status and patient outcomes, thus strict nutritional screening at inpatient admission and intervention are recommended with special emphasis for those from rural areas, with financial dependence, and with functional impairment on admission.