Castañeda TC, Acuña RA, Herrera MAM, Martínez ERA, Castillo RI

Language: Spanish
References: 0
Page: 28-43
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ABSTRACT

Rationale: Aging is a social as well as a cultural construction which societies and individuals reconfigure and assume in different manners en different moments. More and more persons surpass the chronological barriers the human being has established as elderliness, thus transforming aging into a challenge for (post)modern societies. Objective: To assess the influence of depression upon the nutritional status of the elders living without restrictions in a community of mexican State of Zacatecas. Study design: Cross-sectional, analytical. Study serie: Thirty subjects (Women: 73.3%) with ages ≥ 60 years examined in 2 different locations: Nursery home: 26.7% vs. Ambulatory program: 63.3%. Methods: Depression was by means of the Yesavage (abridged) questionnaire. Nutritional status was independently determined with the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) of the elderly. Associations between the affective and nutritional domains were adjusted according with the Gijón scale for assessing the elder´s social networks. Results: Depression was present in 40.0% of the surveyed elderlies. Malnutrition affected 73.3% of those examined. Associations between the affective and nutritional domains were mediated by the elder´s survey location and the state of the social networks. Conclusions: Elderlies admitted to a nursery home, and with a precarious social network, are at increased risk of depression and malnutrition. Associations between these two domains might be redundant, all of these being detrimental for the elder´s nutritional status. Such situations should be identified and intervened in order to secure a dignified and also healthy aging.