Estrategia para mejorar el estado nutricional en adultos mayores del barrio La Merced.

Abstract

The objective was to implement a strategy to improve nutritional status in elderly adults. A quasi-experimental, longitudinal, prospective study was executed; conducted to 39 elderly adults of the Barrio la Merced in the City of Puyo, Pastaza province, which were included in a strategy to improve their nutritional status that consisted of 10 interventions lasting 6 months, to those who performed a nutritional assessment, dental and the implementation of a diet of 1800 kcal and 2000 kcal assigned by a qualified nutritionist according to their nutritional status. Anthropometric measurements were taken using the MNA (Mini Nutritional Assessment) test, descriptive, relational, causal and predictive statistical methods were used. To test the hypothesis, the Mc Nemar and Ranges with Wilcoxon signs test was used for related samples. The results were that 71.8% were women, with an average age of 75 + -8, and 69.2% had primary education. At the beginning the normal nutritional status was 41%, 33.3% overweight and 17% obese, after the intervention 69.2% had normal nutritional status, 17.9% overweight and 10.3% obesity. The initial MNA (Mini Nutritional Assessment) score was 82.1% for normal nutritional status and 17.9% were at risk of malnutrition, after the intervention it was achieved that 100% have normal nutritional status. Coming to the conclusion that socio-epidemiological factors, presence of chronic diseases, use of dental prostheses, polymedication have no predictive relationship with the nutritional status variable, with a value of p = 0.954 without statistical significance. It is recommended that the strategy should be continued for a period exceeding one year to obtain better results than the current ones, such as periodic monitoring and personalized nutrition advice.