Abstract
Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of oral intake difficulty and to identify the factors associated with oral intake difficulty among community-dwelling elderly and nursing home residents.
Methods: Cross-sectional study of disabled community-dwelling elderly (n=1,112, 81.3±8.1(SD) years) and nursing home residents (n=655, 85.2±7.9(SD) years) living in Nagoya city. We examined the characteristics of participants, including demographic characteristics, anthropometory, actual methods of feeding (oral feeding, tube feeding, or parenteral feeding), the basic activities of daily living (bADL), physician-diagnosed chronic diseases, aspiration pneumonia history, and physician-diagnosed chronic diseases, and their nutritional status using the Mini-Nutritional Assessment-short form.
Results: Among disabled community-dwelling elderly or nursing home residents 94.5% or 91.8% took their food by orally, 4.9% or 8.2 were fed by tube feeding, and 0.4% or 0% participants used parenteral nutrition, respectively. Among participants who took their food orally 33.7% (community-dwelling) and 38.6% (nursing home) had swallowing problems. The higher prevalence of malnutrition was observed in those with tube feeding or swallowing problems. The factors associated with tube feeding use or swallowing problems were bADL impairment, presence of dementia or neurodegenerative disease.
Conclusion: High prevalence of oral intake difficulty among community-dwelling elderly and nursing home residents was observed. In addition, higher prevalence of malnutrition was apparent in those elderly compared with those without oral intake difficulty.
