Percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) tube feeding of nursing home residents is not associated with improved body composition parameters.

Objectives: To study differences in nutritional status and body composition, by feeding modality, among disabled nursing home residents.

Design: A retrospective chart-review study.

Setting: A nursing wing of a public urban geriatric center.

Skeletal muscle mass abnormalities are associated with survival rates of institutionalized elderly nursing home residents.

Background: Knowledge about the changes in skeletal muscle mass in nursing home residents is very limited. We hypothesized that such patients have different types of skeletal muscle mass abnormalities that may affect mortality rates. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the prevalence and extent of skeletal muscle mass decline, its different clinical phenotypes (sarcopenia, wasting/atrophy and cachexia) and the mortality rates associated with these abnormalities.

[The bacteriological profile of bacteriuria in residents of a long-term geriatric facility].

Background: Little is known on the bacteriological profile of consecutive urine samples in elderly patients institutionalized in nursing homes.

Aim: This retrospective study aims to characterize urinary pathogens, rates of isolation of the same pathogen in subsequent urine samples and predicting factors associated with such repeated isolations. Data were retrospectively retrieved from medical charts of nursing home patients during a four-year period.

Body mass index (BMI), body composition and mortality of nursing home elderly residents.

The body mass index (BMI) is a key marker of nutritional status among older patients, but does not reflect changes in body composition, The aim of the present study was to investigate BMI levels and body composition in a sample of disabled nursing home residents, and to study possible interrelations between BMI, fat-free body mass (FFM), body fat mass (BFM), skeletal muscle mass (SMM) and 1-year mortality rates. FFM and SMM were assessed by 24-h urine creatinine excretion and BFM as the difference between BMI and FFM. We calculated relative risk (RR) and odds ratio (OR) of 1-year mortality, associated with different levels of BMI, FFM index (where index=value/height(2)), SMM index and BFM index in 82 disabled institutionalized elderly patients.