Verification of the Appropriateness When a Shortened Version of the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) Is Applied for Determining the Malnutrition State of Elderly Patients

Park, Hwa Kyung; Lim, Bo Kyoung; Choi, Sung Hee; Lee, Hye Ryeon; Lee, Do Sang

Abstract

PURPOSE
The Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) is a shortened version of the longer tool, and this was developed to assess the nutritional state of the elderly. This tool uses measurements of the mid-arm circumference and calf circumference, which are among the MNA's list of items relating to anthropometric measurements. But due to the difficulty and complication of placing measuring tools everywhere, we attempted to use a shortened version of the tests by transforming the tests into three different types to get easier and quicker results.
METHODS
The three types of transformation were as follows: 1) deleting the problems related to anthropometric measurement, which are Q (Mid-arm circumference in cm) and R (Calf circumference in cm) 2) deleting two items, and 2 points were reduced from the standard test (Q, R: 1 point reduced from each) and 3) the original, screening part and assessment part were transformed and the assessment was carried out to the end and evaluated regardless of the screening score.
RESULTS
The subjects of the study consisted 121 women and men who were admitted as patients; they were all aged 65 or over and capable of communication. The results of the assessment of the MNA, the anthropometric Measurements and the laboratory data were compared to determine if there were any correlations among them. The average age of the study subjects were 73.79+/-6.01. The nutritional assessment results were as follows: those in well nourished state (A) were 19%, those at risk of a malnourished state (B) were 52.1%, and those with a malnourished state (C) were 28.9%. According to the MNA results, each group's average age, BMI, PIBW and laboratory data showed a significant difference between the three groups.
CONCLUSION
As the group's nutritional state tended towards a well nourished status, the score of the shortened version of the MNA also increased. Therefore, we conclude that we can predict the malnutrition tendency of elderly patients by using the results of the shortened version of the MNA.