relationships between mini nutritional assessment and functional status in elderly iranian people living in nursing homes

b a ckground:  nutrition status is an important constituent of health in an elderly and  evaluation  of  these  groups  are  necessary  for  development  of  treatment protocols. the study aimed to estimate the prevalence of malnutrition with mini nutritional assessment (mna)  tool  in  the  elderly living in  nursing homes.  in addition, the association of mna results and functional status was investigated. m ethods : 245 of elderly residents in nursing homes in tehran (90 men and 155 women)  were  studied.  data  were  collected  using  the  mna,  anthropometric measurement, and functional evaluations by katz index. results : 35.1% showed normal status while 55.9% have been classified at risk malnutrition and 9% suffered from severe malnutrition based on mna scores. katz score showed that 20.4% older people absolutely depended on others for all of activities for daily living. there was significant difference in score of katz index according to gender (p < 0.050). a positive correlation was found between mna scale and katz index (r = 0.251, n = 245, and p = 0.001). analysis of logistic regression controlled for age and gender showed in those at risk of malnutrition a higher mna score significantly lowered the risk of being dependent based on katz index (odds ratio: 2.14, confidence interval: 1.15-3.98 and p = 0.016), however this relationship  was  not  observed  elderly  subjects  who  were  malnourished  [2.53 (0.92-6.95) and p = 0.070). conclusion : the study demonstrates high provenance of risk malnutrition, as well as the close association between functional status and nutritional status in the elderly subjects. considering the  results, a  larger  study concerning nutritional status and functionality in the elderly living in nursing homes is warranted.