The Relationship between Nutritional Status and Early-and Mid-term Mortality of Geriatric Patients Admitted to the Emergency Internal Medicine Unit

Abstract

Aim:The need for bodily energy in the elderly may decrease due to physical activity limitations, while it may increase with the effects of the disease. The most common screening tool developed for the geriatric population is the Mini Nutritional Assessment, and lower scores are associated with higher mortality predictions. We aimed to correlate the nutritional status of patients admitted to the emergency department with mortality.Materials and Method:Among the geriatric patients admitted to our emergency internal medicine unit between October 1, 2019, and March 1, 2020, 289 patients were included in this cross-sectional study. The Nutritional Risk Screening-2002 and Mini Nutritional Assessment tests were administered to all patients.Results:The number of patients at risk of malnutrition was 49.4% (n=143). The median follow-up was 312 days for all patients, and the mortality rate was 42.5% (n=123) for all our patients, and 50.4% (n=72) of the patients who died were male. Diabetes was high in our geriatric patients, as in all age groups, and its effect on mortality was observed, and cancer patients had an almost three-fold higher malnutrition rate. Seventy patients were transferred from the internal medicine service to the intensive care unit, and 61 of these patients (87.14%) died.Conclusion:The Mini Nutritional Assessment is a non-complex and sensitive method that can be used to predict early and mid-term mortality in geriatric patients admitted to the emergency department.

Keywords

• malnutrition
• nutritional assessment
• nutritional surveys
• emergency medicine