Nutritional risk assessment in elderly patients with chronic heart failure

Abstract

Objective To investigate the association of nutritional risk screening scores with lower respiratory tract infections and cardiac function grading in patients with chronic heart failure(CHF). Methods Records of 108 patients with CHF recruited from January 2013 to January 2014 at our hospital were analyzed retrospectively.Patients were divided into the observation group and the control group.The observation group included 54 CHF patients with lower respiratory tract infections, while the control group included 54 CHF patients without lower respiratory tract infections.Nutritional risk screening was performed in accordance with Nutritional risk screening 2002 for all participants, and the nutritional therapy rate and cardiac function grading were analyzed. Results In the observation group, a total of 31 patients(57.4%)showed various degrees of nutritional risk, with 17(31.5%)at mild risk, 8(14.8%)at moderate risk and 6(11.1%)at severe risk, and 9 patients(16.7%)had malnutrition.In the control group, 19 patients(35.2%)were considered at nutritional risk, with 12(22.2%)at mild risk, 4(7.4%)at moderate risk and 3(5.6%)at severe risk, and malnutrition was seen in 3(5.6%)patients.Differences between the two groups were statistically significant(χ2=94.95, P<0.05). Of the 108 CHF cases, 50 were at nutritional risk, but only 4(8.0%)received nutritional support, with 1 treated with parenteral nutrition and 3 with enteral nutrition.For all patients, cardiac function grading was positively correlated to the nutritional risk score, in which poor cardiac function was associated with increased nutritional risk(r=0.45, P< 0.01). Conclusions The incidence of elderly CHF patients with lower respiratory tract infections or poor cardiac function at nutritional risk is high, but very few receive nutritional therapy.Routine nutritional risk screening and early nutritional intervention are recommended for these patients. Key words: Heart failure; Nutritional status