Newsletter

[ Vol. 13 No. 2 ] (May - August 2012 )
Mini nutritional assessment (MNA) for the elderly in japan

Teruyoshi Amagai
Department of Clinical Nutrition, Mukogawa Women’s University (Japan)

 

An population of the elderly older than 65 years-old have passed 22% in Japan and Japanese society is called “Super-Aging Society” as top runner in the world. Although the longevity for Japanese women is above 85 years-old and the longest in the world, the health longevity (HL), which is defined as “longevity without supports in ordinary life”, is estimated 75 years. The Japanese men show almost same phenomena. These mean that the elderly needs some supports for life the last 10 years of their live. The purpose for Super-Aging Society happier is to achieve higher QOL of the elderly and one of means to realize this purpose might shorten HL. This means that the elderly must be rescue from malnutrition and its complications earlier than development of fixed malnutrition-related complications. From stand point of nutritional view, earlier detection pf earlier stage or at risk of malnutrition, which is not yet malnourished but at risk to develop malnutrition.

Mini Nutritional Assessment® -Short Form (MNA®-SF) was developed mainly for this purpose and has several characteristics: (1) stratifying malnutrition and at risk by scoring system, (2) calf circumference (CC), in case not to be able to calculate BMI, shows significantly high correlation with clinical outcome.

Utilizing this opportunity in Taipei PENSA, social validity and effective of MNA®-SF in Japan to predict clinical outcome of the elderly could be examined with clinical evidence of Japanese elderly and try to predict the future of “Super-Aging Society” in the world.

 

From  
The 14th Congress of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition Society of Asia

“From Nutrition Support to Nutrition Therapy”
October 14-16, 2011, Taipei, Taiwan 
Page: 13