Impact of Estimated Weight and Height on Nutritional Assessment in Elderly

Accuracy of Estimated Weight and Height in Old Inpatients and Their Impact on Nutritional Assessment

Recording the exact weight and height should represent a standard practice for all inpatients, as they significantly impact on patients' care, drug dosing and nutritional assessment.

However, these measurements are recorded in a small percentage of inpatients and, even worse, they often are estimated by nurses or Physicians, or self-reported by patients. This error may contribute to a wrong nutritional assessment, since the body mass index (BMI) is one of the parameters included in some of the most used nutritional scores.

In this study the investigators will perform a nutritional assessement, at hospital admission, in a group of inpatients by the mini-nutritional assessment short form (MNA-SF), by means of estimated, self-reported and exact body weight measures.

Moreover, in those subjects with a malnutrition diagnosis (by MNA-SF) the investigators will perform bioimpedence analysis and will evaluate a series of anthropometric measurements offering insights into body composition and distribution of fat and muscle, such as calf, waist and hip circumference.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Patients of both sexes with free and informed consent.
• Age 65 or older (in line with the World Health Organization definition and the recommendations of the ESPEN guidelines for geriatric nutritional assessment).

Exclusion Criteria:

• Inability or unwillingness to provide informed consent.
• Severe cognitive impairment.
• Language or communication barriers.
• Clinical or logistical conditions that make objective measurement of weight and/or height impossible (e.g., non-transferable bedridden status, clinical instability, risk to the patient).
• Clinical judgment of unsuitability, at the discretion of the physician responsible for the study