Study on the prevalence of malnutrition in subjects over 65 years of age in Madrid (DREAM+65)
The results of the study on the prevalence of malnutrition in patients over 65 years of age performed in different Community healthcare centres of the Regional Social Welfare Service of the Community of Madrid has been presented in a press release with all the investigators.
“The study shows that 10% of the people over 65 years of age in Madrid are malnourished and 23.3% are at risk of malnutrition”
“This study supports the need to perform an early screening of malnutrition followed by an action plan in the different clinical settings, mainly in the hospitals and nursing homes”
19th November 2014
The study DREAM +65 was presented in a press release with all the investigators. This study was a collaboration between members of the Health Regional Government and the másnutridos Alliance.
It is a cross-sectional, multi-centre study conducted to determine the prevalence of malnutrition in people over 65 years of age in primary healthcare centres, care centres for the elderly, hospitals and nursing homes located at the Community of Madrid, Spain.
The study included a sample of 1103 people over 65 years of age from 33 centres distributed in different clinical settings. The prevalence of malnutrition was 10%, with 23.3% of the sample being at risk of malnutrition. Taking into account that 16.3% of the population of Madrid (1,051,060 inhab.) is over 65 years of age, this means that 195,106 inhab. are malnourished and 241,744 inhab. at risk.
The screening tool employed was the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA). The prevalence of malnutrition was higher in hospitals and nursing homes. DRM was closely related to the level of dependence. In totally dependent subjects 35% were at risk and 60% malnourished compared with 9.9% and 1.2% in independent subjects, respectively.
This study shows the need to perform an early screening followed by an action plan to tackle the problem of DRM in all the clinical settings, specially in the hospitals and nursing homes.
Right to left- Cristina Cuerda (SENPE and másnutridos Alliance), Juan Carlos Abánades and Primitivo Ramos (Health Regional Government), Julia Alvarez (SENPE and másnutridos Alliance)
