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. 2019 Jul 9;11(7):1551.
doi: 10.3390/nu11071551.

Changes in Nutritional Status and Musculoskeletal Health in a Geriatric Post-Fall Care Plan Setting

Romy Conzade  1   2   3 , Steven Phu  1   2 , Sara Vogrin  1   2 , Ebrahim Bani Hassan  1   2 , Walter Sepúlveda-Loyola  1   2   4 , Barbara Thorand  3 , Gustavo Duque  5   6
Affiliations

Changes in Nutritional Status and Musculoskeletal Health in a Geriatric Post-Fall Care Plan Setting

Romy Conzade et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

Understanding how changes in nutritional status influence musculoskeletal recovery after falling remains unclear. We explored associations between changes in nutritional status and musculoskeletal health in 106 community-dwelling older adults aged ≥65 years, who attended the Falls and Fractures Clinic at Sunshine Hospital in St Albans, Australia after falling. At baseline and after 6 months, individuals were assessed for Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA®), grip strength, gait speed, Timed Up and Go (TUG) test, Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB), and bone turnover marker levels. Associations were examined using multiple linear regression, adjusted for baseline covariates and post-fall care plans. Over 6 months, the prevalence of malnutrition or risk thereof decreased from 29% to 15% using MNA <24/30. Specifically, 20 individuals (19%) improved, 7 (7%) deteriorated, and 73 (69%) maintained nutritional status, including 65 (61%) who remained well-nourished and 8 (8%) who remained malnourished/at risk. A 1-point increase in MNA score over 6 months was associated with an increase of 0.20 points (95% confidence interval 0.10, 0.31, p < 0.001) in SPPB score. Improvement in nutritional status was associated with improvement in physical performance, providing a basis for interventional studies to ascertain causality and evaluate nutritional models of care for post-fall functional recovery in older adults.

Keywords: MNA; bone turnover; elderly; falls; malnutrition; nutrition; osteosarcopenia; physical performance; prospective; sarcopenia.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Change in MNA score (ΔMNA) by baseline MNA score across subgroups of nutritional status change. One dot represents one individual. Six participants could not be represented due to missing value in MNA score at follow-up.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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