Frailty and nutrition risk screening in home-delivered meal clients
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2020
Department/School
Health Sciences
Publication Title
Journal of Nutrition in Gerontology and Geriatrics
Abstract
© 2020, © 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. Community service providers, such as Meals on Wheels (MOW) programs, help older adults remain in their homes despite advanced care needs. The purpose of this study was to determine if a frailty index (FI) could be calculated from self-reported health, function, and nutrition information already collected by MOW providers to provide additional information for care planning and risk stratification. Data from 258 MOW clients at one provider were used to calculate the FI from 40 possible health and age-related variables collected during routine health assessments. The average FI was 0.29 ± 0.13(SD), range 0.05–0.68. Frailty was categorized as non-frail, vulnerable, frail, and most frail; nutrition risk increased incrementally with these categories; however, they appear to assess risk from differing angles and etiologies. The addition of the FI can provide a more holistic picture of MOW client health than nutrition risk alone and the FI can be calculated from routinely-collected data.
Link to Published Version
Recommended Citation
Hutchins-Wiese, H. L., & Walsh, S. E. (2020). Frailty and nutrition risk screening in home-delivered meal clients. Journal of Nutrition in Gerontology and Geriatrics, 39(2), 114–130. https://doi.org/10.1080/21551197.2020.1719258