Nutrition Assessment
Conditions
Brief summary
Recording the exact weight and height should represent a standard practice for all inpatients, as they significantly impact on patients' care, drug dosing and nutritional assessment. However, these measurements are recorded in a small percentage of inpatients and, even worse, they often are estimated by nurses or Physicians, or self-reported by patients. This error may contribute to a wrong nutritional assessment, since the body mass index (BMI) is one of the parameters included in some of the most used nutritional scores. In this study the investigators will perform a nutritional assessement, at hospital admission, in a group of inpatients by the mini-nutritional assessment short form (MNA-SF), by means of estimated, self-reported and exact body weight measures. Moreover, in those subjects with a malnutrition diagnosis (by MNA-SF) the investigators will perform bioimpedence analysis and will evaluate a series of anthropometric measurements offering insights into body composition and distribution of fat and muscle, such as calf, waist and hip circumference.
Interventions
DIAGNOSTIC_TESTAnthropometric and nutritional assessment
Collection of self-reported weight and height, the exact measurement of weight and height with certified instruments, the administration of the MNA-SF questionnaire and the detection of body circumferences
Sponsors
Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli IRCCS
Study design
Allocation
NA
Intervention model
SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose
SUPPORTIVE_CARE
Masking
NONE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
65 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* Patients of both sexes with free and informed consent. * Age 65 or older (in line with the World Health Organization definition and the recommendations of the ESPEN guidelines for geriatric nutritional assessment).
Exclusion criteria
* Inability or unwillingness to provide informed consent. * Severe cognitive impairment. * Language or communication barriers. * Clinical or logistical conditions that make objective measurement of weight and/or height impossible (e.g., non-transferable bedridden status, clinical instability, risk to the patient). * Clinical judgment of unsuitability, at the discretion of the physician responsible for the study
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| To assess the impact of discrepancies between estimated weight values reported in the medical record and those exactly measured | At admission | Comparison among estimated (by nurses), self-reported (by patients) and exact body weight measures in kilograms (by nurses and physicians). |
| To assess the impact of discrepancies between estimated height values reported in the medical record and those exactly measured | At admission | Comparison among estimated (by nurses), self-reported (by patients) and exact height measures in centimeters (by nurses and physicians). |
| Differences in MNA-SF scores | At admission | Comparison among MNA-SF scores obtained using estimated, self-reported and exact weight measures in kilograms. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Number of patients with a diagnosis of sarcopenia by both bioimpedance and anthropometric analysis | At admission | Evaluation of the diagnosis of sarcopenia through the comparison between bioimpedance analysis (measured in %) and anthropometric measurements (calf, hip, waist, measured in cm). |
Outcome results
None listed