Measuring nutrition risk in older adults can lead to better health outcomes
One-third of Canadian adults aged 55 or older are nutritionally at risk, potentially leading to increased hospital stays, more emergency visits and physician consultations for possible infections, a new study found.
The University of Waterloo researchers assessed data from more than 22,000 community-dwelling adults aged 55 and over from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging. After an initial evaluation, they followed up with participants up to three years later to track their health-service use over the previous year.
Researchers used the SCREEN-8 tool (Seniors in the Community Risk Evaluation for Eating and Nutrition) to measure an individual’s nutrition risk. They found that those with higher SCREEN-8 scores at the initial screening – indicating better nutrition – had significantly lower odds of reporting an overnight hospital stay, visiting a hospital emergency room, or seeing a doctor for an infection when followed up three years later.
“While these results make sense intuitively, they highlight how a straightforward and inexpensive tool can easily be used to potentially make a vast difference in improving health-care outcomes and costs,” said Dr. Heather Keller, a professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Sciences and Schlegel Research Chair in Nutrition and Aging.
“SCREEN-8 should be a routine part of primary care practice, although it can be self-administered at home.”
Nutrition risk among older adults is a significant concern, especially among community-dwelling individuals, as it precedes malnutrition. The eight questions on SCREEN-8 gather information about weight change, appetite, eating challenges – such as choking or difficulty swallowing – meal preparation behaviours and fruit, vegetable and fluid intake.
The study sample included an equal number of males and females, with a mean age of about 66 years. Most participants were living with a partner and two-thirds of people surveyed had post-secondary degrees. One of the study’s limitations was that the people sampled were predominately highly educated and white, meaning that it is not fully representative of Canadians.
“Knowing who’s at risk nutritionally allows individuals the possibility of modifying behaviours to avert negative health outcomes,” Keller said. “Further research can help determine how health-care practitioners can best triage and provide education, programming and services to offset high risk.”
The study, Baseline nutrition risk as measured by SCREEN-8 predicts self-reported 12-month healthcare service use of older adults 3 years later, was published in Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism and is co-authored by Vanessa Trinca, a research associate in Kinesiology and Health Sciences at Waterloo.
