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The use of armspan in nutritional assessment of the elderly
1Department of Geriatric Medicine, St George's Hospital Medical School, London, UK.
Abstract:
The use of body mass index (BMI) in the elderly is limited by the measurement of height which is often unreliable. Armspan approximates to height at maturity. It may, therefore, be an alternative to height in calculating BMI. We studied the relationship between height and armspan in 101 elderly men and women. A comparison of BMI by height and armspan was made. The correlation between height and armspan was 0.93. Armspan could be estimated by doubling halfspan (recumbent). The mean difference between BMI by height and armspan was 1.79 (SD 1.11) kg/M2. We concluded that armspan is a reliable and practical estimate of height in the non-ambulant elderly. There is a case for the use of armspan instead of height in the determination of BMI in the elderly.