Can We Obtain Weight without Weighing?

Introduction: Ageing is associated with various co-morbidities and increased risk of nutritional deficiency, especially in the hospitalized and institutionalized elderly population. The nutritional status is difficult to measure in the elderly because of the following issues: 1) cognitive impairment and the inability to recall any dietary related information, 2) biochemical lab values that varies with coexisting underlying chronic illness, 3) subclinical symptoms of hidden illness Body weight is an important parameter for the assessment of nutritional status. Therefore, we need to adopt a suitable method to assess the body weight of the elderly population. There have been many studies with various equations to estimate weight from anthropometric measurements such as the knee length, mid-arm and calf circumference, skin fold thickness etc. Objective: To compare the estimated body weight using published formulas to actual body weight of older persons. Method: This was a descriptive study. The samples were collected from medical wards and clinics of the General Hospital Kuala Lumpur from July till August 2013. The inclusion criteria of study were all patients 60 years and older who are able to stand up for measurements to be done. Then estimation of the body weight was performed using two different equations (Chumlea 1988, Mexico and Jung 2004, Hong Kong) suggested by previous studies (Table 1) using the knee length, mid-arm and mid-calf circumference measured. In this study, we used the mean of the calculated weight using published equations to compare with the mean of the actual body weight. We also assessed the correlation of the calculated weight versus actual body weight using the Spearman Correlation Coefficient. Results: 60 patients were included in this study. The results showed statistically significant differences in actual weight versus estimated weight using Chumlea 1988, Mexico (p=0.0001) and Jung 2004, Hong Kong (p=0.0001) equation. The different value range of compared mean in equation of Chumlea 1988, Mexico is 2 to 6 kg whereas Jung 2004, Hong Kong is 6 to 10 kg.(Graph 1) There was a positive and high correlation between actual weight versus estimated weight using Chumlea 1988, Mexico (r=0.856) and Jung 2004, Hong Kong (r=0.783). Discussion: In this study, we found that the calculated weight showed an overestimation of the actual weight. Even though, these two equations had an overestimation of the weight and the difference was statistically significant (p=0.0001); the variation of calculated weight range was smaller using the Chumlea 1988, Mexico (2 to 6 kg) formula. Based on this result, we concluded that the equation of Chumlea 1988, Mexico would be more applicable for the Malaysian elderly population.

並列關鍵字