Assessment of Nutritional Status of Elderly People in a Practice of Family Medicine in Relation to MNA Test, Comorbidity and Chronic Therapy

Abstract

Introduction: Nutrition assessment is one of the biggest challenges in family medicine practice because of the increasing number of older people with more comorbidities and chronic therapy. The MNA(Mini Nutritional Assessment) test has proven to be the most sensitive and exact tool for this type of research. The aim of this study was to assess whether there is a difference in the nutritional status of elderly people, over 65 years of age, with respect to sociodemographic characteristics, number and type of chronic diseases, and number of medications used in chronic therapy. Materials and methods: Research subjects were 207 patients at the age of 65 treated at the Medical Centre Slavonski Brod during a period of 3 months. During the visit, the nutritional status was examined by using the MNA test. The information on chronic diseases and number of medications the patients were using has been collected from the Medicus computer program. Results: According to the MNA test results, 62 subjects (30%) showed risk of malnutrition, average age of the subjects was 72 years and the median of MNA test results was 25.50. Also, multimorbidity is present in 64.73% of the subjects and 42% of them take more than three medications in chronic therapy. No statistically significant difference was found in the results of the MNA test regarding the number of chronic diseases (p =0.89) and number of medications (p = 0.87). Conclusion: It is important to regularly monitor the nutritional status in order to prevent progression of chronic diseases and reduce additional cost of treatment.