J Am Diet Assoc
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A simple, reliable, noninvasive, and easy-to-use instrument is important for successful monitoring of emerging nutrition problems in elderly people. The objectives of this study were to determine whether adoption of population-specific body mass index (BMI) cutpoints would improve the predictive ability of the short-form Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) and whether calf circumference could be an acceptable alternative to BMI in the short-form MNA without compromising its predictive ability. Using convenience sampling, the study recruited 301 community-living, 109 care center-living, and 68 nursing home-living elderly people, 65 years or older, as subjects. ⋯ These results suggest that modification of a measurement tool according to cultural or anthropometric features of the target population is necessary. The study also shows that calf circumference can be an acceptable alternative to BMI in the short-form MNA. Because measuring calf circumference is easier and less time-consuming then measuring BMI, the modified tool can make periodic nutritional screening an easier job and routine nutritional screening a more realistic goal in geriatric care.