Abstract
Aging is an inevitable process, old age cannot be healed. It can only be protected, promoted and extended by adding quality to life. To explore the health and nutrition status of geriatric people that need to be accommodated in future priority health programme of Nepal this cross sectional study was done in two selected rural VDCs of Rupandehi District of Nepal. In this study out of a total of participants (n=364) 9.0% were severely underweight, 15.5% were underweight and 24.5% were malnourished. Three hundred and sixteen (85.9%) participants had health problems, which were mainly respiratory diseases, hypertension and diabetes mellitus. Among the participants, 22.3% had problem for activities of daily living (AODL) and 50.8 % had cognitive impairment. The nutritional status appeared to decline with advancing age and both the genders were equally susceptible to malnutrition. Nutritional status of elderly was not found to be associated with health problems, alcohol intake, literacy and cognitive impairment, whereas it was found to be associated with smoking and compromised daily activities. The findings of this study help to fill the gap in health and nutritional measures that address the needs of this group of people in Nepal.
Highlights
In recent years, there has been a sharp increase in the number of old people worldwide, mostly as a consequence of declining fertility, improved health care facilities and reduced mortality rates in later life
The nutritional status of elderly assessed in relation to their age as shown in table 3 depicts that nutritional status declined as the age advanced, this was not found to be statistically significant (χ2=12.008, P value 0.445)
In the present study nutritional status assessment of elderly population in relation to health problems is tabulated in table 6
Summary
There has been a sharp increase in the number of old people worldwide, mostly as a consequence of declining fertility, improved health care facilities and reduced mortality rates in later life. To explore the association of health (physical and cognitive) and nutritional status of elderly people this study was carried out.
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