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Educare

Educare

JULIO 2010 N° 7 Volumen 8

Nutritional assessment in the elderly

Section: LEARNING TO TEACH

Authors

María del Rocío Catalina García

Position

Alumna de la Escuela Universitaria de Enfermería de la Universidad de Valladolid.

Contact email: rocicg85hotmail.com

Abstract

Elderly people and are more likely to suffer from malnutrition. An early diagnosis of the situation and trigger circumstances allow a better approach. The nurses, responsible for caring for the person as a whole, must understand and use the mechanisms at its disposal in terms of nutritional assessment. The nurse is the health professional who has more contact with the patient and will likely be the first to detect a risk. In this paper, the steps that comprise a complete nutritional assessment will be detailed, as well as the different existing nutritional scales and questionnaires, making a comparison between them. Also the nutritional risk factors of the elder which should raise the alarm for the professional will be analyzed.

Keywords:

elderly nutrition assessment scales; geriatric; malnourished elderly; Mini Nutritional Assessmentnutritional assessment in elderly

Versión en Español

Título:

Valoración nutricional en el anciano