Background: The nonprotein calorie/nitrogen (NPC/N) ratio of food remains poorly investigated. Thus, this study examined the nutritional factors that influence the choice of discharge destination for geriatric patients. Methods: We retrospectively investigated the patient characteristics, clinical laboratory test results, and hospital food consumption of 65 geriatric patients (80.0 ± 8.2 years; 31 males, 34 females), who were receiving oral nutritional support at a small mixed-care hospital and further explored their discharge destinations. The NPC/N ratios were calculated according to the menus for the meals provided during the first 4 weeks after admission. For logistic regression analysis, the objective variables were discharge destinations (i.e., nursing care facilities including home or medical institutions) whereas the predictor variables were age, sex, nursing care level, hospitalization duration, serum albumin level (Alb), estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), and NPC/N ratio.

Background: Differences in nutrition intake by meal intake time of geriatric patients may affect albumin (Alb) synthesis ability. Methods:We included 36 geriatric patients (81.7 ± 7.7 years; 20 males and 16 females) as subjects. We calculated their dietary patterns (DPs) by computing intake by breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as well as by nutrient, for a weight of 1 kg/day for 4 weeks after hospitalization. We confirmed the relationship between "DP with a positive correlation with breakfast protein" and the change rate of albumin (Alb-RC). Then, we performed linear regression analysis to explore factors influencing Alb-RC and compared non-protein calorie/nitrogen ratio (NPC/N) between the upper and lower Alb-RC groups. Results:It was observed that Alb-RC was negatively correlated with "DP with a positive correlation with breakfast protein" (B = -0.055, P = 0.038) and positively correlated with breakfast NPC/N (B = 0.043, P = 0.029). Breakfast NPC/N tended to be higher in the upper group than in the lower group (P = 0.058). Conclusion:The study revealed that there was a positive correlation between Alb-RC levels and breakfast NPC/N in geriatric patients at the care mix institution.

Background The provision of hospital meals is considered a therapeutic intervention, and a therapeutic diet consisting of a post-discharge meal sample is provided. For elderly patients who require long-term care, it is important to determine the significance of nutrition by taking into account hospital meals, including therapeutic meals for conditions such as diabetes. Therefore, it is important to identify the factors that influence this judgment. This study aimed to investigate the difference between the expected nutritional intake via nutritional interpretation and actual nutritional intake. Methods The study included 51 geriatric patients (77.7 ± 9.5 years; 36 males and 15 females) who could eat meals independently. The participants completed a dietary survey to determine the perceived nutritional intake obtained from hospital meal contents. Additionally, we investigated the amount of hospital meal leftovers from the medical records and the amount of nutrients from the menus to calculate the actual nutritional intake. We calculated the amount of calories, protein concentration, and non-protein/nitrogen ratio from the perceived and actual nutritional intake values. We then calculated the cosine similarity and conducted a qualitative analysis of factorial units to examine similarities between perceived and actual intake. Results Among factors that constituted the large cosine similarity group (gender, age, etc.), gender was found as a particularly significant factor, with a high number of female patients (P = 0.014). Conclusions Gender was found to influence the appropriate interpretation of the significance of hospital meals. The perception of such meals as samples for post-discharge dietary practice was more significant among female patients. This demonstrated that in elderly patients, it is important to consider gender differences when providing diet and convalescence guidance.

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