Nutritional Status of Elderly People Living at Home in Sidi-Bel-Abbes (West Algeria)

Abstract

The aim of the study was to assess the nutritional status of a cohort of elderly people living independently at home. 314 elderly individuals were selected during general medicine examinations. The collection of nutritional data concerned the measurement of some anthropometric parameters (body weight, height, and BMI), the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) and serum albumin. The average age was 72.92 ± 6.26 years with a feminine predominance (59.55%). The BMI was 25.63 ± 4.43 Kg·m^-² and serum albumin 36.45 ± 5.77 g·L^-¹. 61% of the investigated population were affected by chronic diseases such as: diabetes (39%). Using the MNA as a mean of screening; 46.18% of individuals presented a risk of malnutrition and 4.78% were undernourished. However, when the BMI and serum albumin were used; 14.01% and 42.35% have been considered as undernourished respectively. The MNA seems to be a more sensitive tool rather than the other screening parameters (BMI and serum albumin) in the assessment of nutritional risk in the elderly

Assessment of the Nutritional Status of 202 Elderly People Living at Home in Sidi-Bel-Abbès (Western Algeria)

“…Women are more exposed to the risk of malnutrition than men (76.32% versus 59.09%); these results are in agreement with Kezachian & Bonnet [2]. The prevalence of obesity in the study population is similar to that previously observed in an Algerian population [16]; it was also higher among women (34.21%) than men (10.23%) (p < 0.05). This finding is consistent with the work of Elasmi-Allal et al [26] and Serra et al [23].…”

“…Our study, conducted in a population of elderly people living at home, found a high prevalence of diabetes (32%) far greater than that described in the literature (10%) for industrialized countries [13]- [15] but similar to that found in a previous study in Algerian population [16]. BMI in both males and females conforms to the standards proposed by Beck et al (24 -29 kg/m 2 ) [17] and the values accepted by the European Community of Gerontology [18].…”

“…According to the MNA, 5.94% of the study were malnourished, which is comparable to data from the literature [25] and 68.81% of subjects were at nutritional risk, which is much greater than the data in the literature [2]. It is worth noting that the prevalence of high nutritional risk observed in our study is confirmed by the work of Menadi et al [16] in an Algerian population. Women are more exposed to the risk of malnutrition than men (76.32% versus 59.09%); these results are in agreement with Kezachian & Bonnet [2].…”

“…[23] but higher than that observed in an Algerian population [16]. BMI scores indicated that 7.43% of the subjects were undernourished; this prevalence is similar to that described in the literature (5% -10%) [24] [25].…”

Malnutrition among the aged population in Africa: A systematic review, meta-analysis, and meta-regression of studies over the past 20 years

“…Finally, a total of 28 met the inclusion criteria, which were from 17 African countries (Fig 1). Furthermore, from the total of 28 eligible studies, 11 studies [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31] used MNA tool, whereas the remaining 17 studies [13,[32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47] used BMI to assess undernutrtion in aged population (Table 1).…”