Elderly Health Journal

Introduction: The Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) has been developed to assess malnutrition in elderly and to filter those who might get benefited from early diagnosis and treatment. The objective of the present study was to examine the nutritional profile of old age hospitalized individuals through the use of the MNA in King Khalid hospital at Hail city of Saudi Arabia.

Methods: Demographic data was gathered through a questionnaire and a modified version of MNA, which was translated into Arabic and applied to 100 elderly females aged ≥ 45 years to assess their nutritional status. The MNA version modified by Nestle and translated into Arabic was used to evaluate the patients for this study. The descriptive analysis of variables is shown as the average ± one standard deviation.

Results: Mean age of the participants was 61.12 ± 12.4 years ranging from 45 to 92 years. The mean body mass index of total population was found to be 26.9 ± 5.2 ranging from 18.3 to 46.5 kg/m². The assessment scores and total malnutrition score was found to be decreasing with increasing age, showing a significant inverse correlation (P < 0.01). Furthermore, the difference in the screening scores according to the age was found to be statistically insignificant.

Conclusion: Because of the high prevalence of elderly patients that were malnourished or at risk of malnutrition, a more detailed evaluation of nutritional status, along with a regular follow up and dietary intervention to reverse the situation, of these patients is recommended.