Nutritional parameters in homebound persons of greatly advanced age

There exists a deficiency of accurate information regarding standard nutritional parameters in people of greatly advanced age. In order to begin obtaining appropriate data, we assessed nutritional status in 45 elderly homebound individuals with a mean age of 84 yr, using anthropometric methods, skin testing, and blood analysis. We compared our data with those from the HANES survey, a reasonable approach to the testing of new possible standards for nutritional assessment. Our results suggest that standard measures in common use are inappropriate for people of greatly advanced age.