Nutritional and oral health status of an elderly population in Nairobi

Abstract

Objective: to determine the nutrition and oral health status of elderly persons in Nairobi, Kenya. Design: a cross-sectional study. Setting: households in dagoretti division of Nairobi. Subjects: two hundred and eighty nine persons (29.8% males and 70.2% females) aged 45 years and above were assessed. Results: the level of malnutrition using the mid upper arm circumference was 18.8% while by body mass index was 11.4%. of the population assessed, 46.4% had normal nutritional status while 40.9% were overweight, with more females (48.0%) than males (25.9%) being overweight. the study established that many of the elderly persons suffered from dental problems, especially periodontitis with 89.9% having dental plaque, calculus 85.6%, gingival recession 82.5% and bleeding gums 77.4%. The decayed index missing and filled teeth, was 7.173 with 19.7% caries free, 51.9% reported tooth mobility and edentulousness was common. Conclusions: under-nutrition, obesity and dental problems are issues of concern among the elderly. there is need to develop policies that will look into the nutrition and dental health of the elderly in order to improve their welfare.

Nutritional Vulnerability of Older Persons Living in Urban Areas of Lake Victoria Basin in East Africa: A Cross Sectional Survey

“…BMI has been used as an independent indictor of malnutrition in many studies in Africa (6,9). These studies found a prevalence of undernutrition in older persons (BMI 18.5 kg=m 2 ) ranging between 9.5% and 36.1% in men and between 13.1% and 27.0% in women; our findings also fall within this range.…”

“…These studies found a prevalence of undernutrition in older persons (BMI 18.5 kg=m 2 ) ranging between 9.5% and 36.1% in men and between 13.1% and 27.0% in women; our findings also fall within this range. Similarly, gender differences in nutritional status are also found to be manifested in older persons in other countries (4,5,9,17). Thus, food insecurity is a problem in the Lake Victoria Basin (10,11,12).…”

“…Hewitt and colleagues (8) reported 26.2% prevalence of underweight and 17.8% overweight among Guyanese older adults in residential homes. Ngatia and associates (9) reported high prevalences of both overnutrition (40.9%) and undernutrition (11.4%) among older adults in Kenya.…”

Review paper Host response, obesity, and oral health

“…Other parameters that are used to determine the progress of obesity are an assessment of waist circumference, the ratio of waist to hip circumference, and the measurement of total body fat. There are also works in the literature, providing evidence for the existence of a relationship between the above-listed parameters of the degree of obesity qualification and indicators evaluating the progression of periodontal disease and oral hygiene [ 19 ].…”

Importance of Free Medical Camps in Exposing Rural Communities' Dental Health Issues and Mitigating Morbidity Associated with Dental Caries

“…Most of the Kenyan surveys have targeted the adult population for measurement of dental caries [8,9]. But even those done in children targeted the urban population [10][11][12].…”