Abstract

LOPES, Paulo André et al. Malnutrition Screening in Primary Health Care. Medicina Interna [online]. 2023, vol.30, n.2, pp.47-55.  Epub July 01, 2023. ISSN 0872-671X.  https://doi.org/10.24950/rspmi.1055.

In the community, malnutrition is manifested by the loss of muscle mass, being associated with a decrease in muscle strength, an increased risk of frailty, functional impairment and impaired healing of chronic wounds, as well as a higher incidence of infections. It is estimated that malnutrition affects one in three elderly people at home and one in three patients in elderly care institutions. Malnutrition is reversible as long as the patient has access to timely nutritional screening that identifies their nutritional risk and as long as an individualized nutritional intervention is instituted. Disease associated malnutrition continues to be perceived as a secondary problem in primary health care, so the implementation of nutritional risk screening, as a routine parameter, is the first step in improving access to nutritional care in the community. In this article, the Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool is proposed for routine nutritional screening in primary care.

Keywords : Aged; Aging; Malnutrition/diagnosis; Nutrition Assessment; Nutritional Status; Primary Health Care..

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