Mini-nutritional assessment score and the risk for undernutrition in free-living older persons

Many scales have been proposed for the brief nutritional assessment of older persons, with the goal of increasing undernutrition detection and the detection of nutritional risk. The Mini-Nutritional Assessment (Guigoz et al., 1994) has been increasingly used worldwide, but its efficacy has been assessed in few countries.

This study aimed to assess, through complete clinical evaluation, anthropometric measurements and laboratorial tests, the nutritional state of older persons living in the community and compare the results with the score obtained by the application of the Mini Nutritional Assessment.

Forty-two persons aged 60 years or older (55% women, mean age 70.9 years) were studied. All volunteers were submitted to a criterious clinical evaluation, anthropometric measures and laboratorial testing (serum albumin, hemoglobin, lymphocite count, iron and unsatured iron binding capacity).

Twenty-seven volunteers (64%) were considered eutrophic, 12 volunteers were considered obese (28,6%) and three volunteers were considered undernourished. Thirteen volunteers were classified as in risk of undernutrition by the Mini-Nutritional Assessment score, 29 scored within the normal range and no volunteer was considered to be undernourished. The Mini Nutritional Assessment score was significantly associated with age and with the unsatured iron binding capacity. When compared to the final nutritional diagnosis, the questionnaire showed 100% sensibility and 74.3% specificity.

This study detected a prevalence of undernutrition in the elderly living in the community similar to those described in developed countries. In this population, the Mini Nutritional Assessment showed to be specially efficient for the detection of nutritional risk.