The objective of this study is to examine the prevalence of
malnutrition and evaluate the nutrition status and clinical outcome in hospitalized patients aged 65 years and older receiving enteral-
parenteral nutrition. This retrospective study was carried out at Başkent University Hospital, Adana, Turkey. A total of 119 patients older than 65 years were recruited. Patients were classified into 3 groups:
protein-energy malnutrition (PEM), moderate PEM, and well nourished according to subjective global assessment (SGA) at admission. All patients were fed by enteral or parenteral route. Acute physiological and chronic health evaluation (APACHE-2) and simplified acute physiology (SAPS 2) scores were recorded in patients followed in the intensive care unit (ICU). Nutrition status was assessed with biochemical (
serum albumin, serum
prealbumin) parameters. These results were compared with mortality rate and length of
hospital stay (LOS). The subjects' mean (+/-SD) age was 73.1 +/- 5.4 years. Using SGA, 5.9% (n = 7) of the patients were classified as severely PEM, 27.7% (n = 33) were classified as moderately PEM, and 66.4% (n = 79) were classified as well nourished. Some 73.1% (n = 87) of the patients were followed in the ICU. Among all patients, 42.9% (n = 51) were fed by a combined enteral-parenteral route, 31.1% (n = 37) by an enteral route, 18.5% (n = 22) by a parenteral route, and 7.6% (n = 9) by an oral route. The average
length of stay for the patients was 18.9 +/- 13.7 days. The mortality rate was 44.5% (n = 53). The mortality rate was 43% (n = 34) in well-nourished patients (n = 79), 48.5% (n = 16) in moderately PEM patients (n = 33), and 42.9% (n = 3) in severely PEM patients (n = 7) (P = .86). The authors observed no difference between well-nourished and malnourished patients with regard to the
serum protein values on admission, LOS, and mortality rate. In this study,
malnutrition as defined by SGA did not influence the mortality rate of
critically ill geriatric patients receiving enteral or
parenteral nutrition. Furthermore, no factor was found to be a good predictor of survival.