Abstract:Objective To investigate the relationship between nutrition status in the elderly inpatients admitted in Geriatric Department and their clinical outcomes. Methods A total of 98 inpatients aged over 60 years from the Geriatric Department of Peking Union Medical College Hospital from November 2011 to March 2012 were enrolled in this study. All the patients were assessed with the Mini Nutritional Assessment Short-Form (MNA-SF) within 72h after admission. At the same period, their anthropometric indices, dietary recall, laboratory indices, and human body composition were also obtained. Clinical outcomes including death, complications, and length of stay (LOS) were observed. Results All enrolled participants completed the entire study. They were at an age of (74.06±7.90) years. MNA-SF indicated that 40 cases (40.82%) were rated as Normalized (MNA-N), 37 cases (37.76%) at Malnutrition Risk (MNA-MR), and 21 cases (21.43%) Malnutrition (MNA-M). The patients in MNA-M [(79.1±9.3) years] were significantly elder than those in MNA-N (both P<0.05). Serum content of pre-albumin was significantly lower in MNA-M patients [(114.7±62.5)mg/L, n=19] than MNA-N [(204.0±65.2)mg/L, n=37] and MNA-MR patients [(175.1±58.3)mg/L, n=34, both P<0.05]. The incidences of infectious complications were obviously higher in MNA-M patients (28.6%) than MNA-N (12.5%) and MNA-MR patients (5.4%). Moreover, LOS in MNA-M patients [(21.9±8.9)d] was much longer than that in MNA-N [(14.9±5.9)d] and MNA-MR [(15.9±7.5)d, both P<0.05)]. There were 2 patients died, both in MNA-M. Conclusion The Elderly inpatients from Geriatric Department are more common in malnutrition or at risk of malnutrition. Malnutrition will obviously prolong their LOS, and increase the incidences of infectious complications, and even mortality risk.