Assessment of nutritional and functional status of elderly in an urban community, Imphal West: a cross-sectional study

Background: Nutrition affects the functional capability of the elderly population and functional status is a key indicator of geriatric health. Study was conducted to explore knowledge regarding the nutritional and functional ability status of elderly at the community level in the urban areas of Manipur. Methods: A cross-sectional study was done among 210 elderly at an urban area. MNA and Katz index of ADL was used for assessing nutritional and functional status of the elderly. Purposive sampling was employed for data collection. Chi-square test and Pearson correlation test was used taking p<0.05 to be statistically significant. Results: Mean score of MNA was 23.28±3.66 and for Katz index was 5.85±0.71. For nutritional status, half of the participants (105, 50%) were normal, almost half of them (95, 45.2 %) were at risk of malnutrition and a very few (10, 4.8%) were malnourished. For functional status, 4 (1.9%) were highly dependent, 10 (4.9%) were moderately dependent and 196 (93.3%) were highly independent. Marital status and co-morbid conditions were statistically associated with nutritional status (p=0.07) and Katz index score for ADL was negatively correlated (r=-0.16; p=0.02) with age of the participants. Conclusions: The prevalence of risk of malnutrition was moderate and a very few of the participants were having highly dependent functional status.