Nutrition and Health Status Assessment of Geriatric People of One Rural District in Nepal

Abstract

Aging is an inevitable process, old age cannot be healed. It can only be protected, promoted and extended by adding quality to life. To explore the health and nutrition status of geriatric people that need to be accommodated in future priority health programme of Nepal this cross sectional study was done in two selected rural VDCs of Rupandehi District of Nepal. In this study out of a total of participants (n=364) 9.0% were severely underweight, 15.5% were underweight and 24.5% were malnourished. Three hundred and sixteen (85.9%) participants had health problems, which were mainly respiratory diseases, hypertension and diabetes mellitus. Among the participants, 22.3% had problem for activities of daily living (AODL) and 50.8 % had cognitive impairment. The nutritional status appeared to decline with advancing age and both the genders were equally susceptible to malnutrition. Nutritional status of elderly was not found to be associated with health problems, alcohol intake, literacy and cognitive impairment, whereas it was found to be associated with smoking and compromised daily activities. The findings of this study help to fill the gap in health and nutritional measures that address the needs of this group of people in Nepal.

Internal and International Migration and the Mental Health of “Left-Behind” Older Parents

“…More recently, young couples in Nepal have been seeking employment and education away from their families, often in cities (CBS Nepal 2019). Since city living is expensive, people are having smaller families, and supporting older parents is becoming less of a priority for many (Shrestha 2012). In addition to a changing family structure, migration has directly affected older family members (Limbu 2012), as members of the traditional family unit are no longer close by to care.…”

“…Researchers have studied the relationship between children's migration and left-behind older parents’ physical health (Lu 2012; Evandrou et al 2017), mental health (Song 2017; Wang et al 2017; Inoue et al 2019; Mergo 2020), quality of life (Liang and Wu 2014; Ye, Chen and Peng 2017) and overall well-being (Gassmann et al 2012; Silverstein, Cong and Li 2006). Generally, research on left-behind parents’ mental health has reported increased depression (Cheng et al 2015; Song 2017; Wang et al 2017; Zhai et al 2015), loneliness (Cheng et al 2015; Liu and Guo 2007; Wang et al 2017), anxiety (Wang et al 2013; Arenas and Yahirun 2010), and poorer cognitive ability (Zhai et al 2015) among older parents with migrant children.…”

Socio-Economic and Health Status of Elderly People in Nepal

“…The absolute number of people aged 60 years and above is expected to increase from 605 million to 2 billion over the same period (WHO, 2012). In Nepal, the trend has been the same; there were 1.5 million elderly inhabitants in 2001 and 2.1 million elderly inhabitants in 2011 that constituted 6.5 percent and 8.14 percent, respectively, of the country's total population in these 2 years (Shrestha, 2012). During the year 1991-2001, the annual elderly population growth rate of Nepal was 3.39 percent which is higher than an annual population growth rate of 2.3 percent (CBS, 2011).…”

Multimorbidity in Diabetic Patients Admitted to a Tertiary Care Center: A Descriptive Cross-sectional Study

“…1.5 million (6.5%) in 2001 which increased to 2.5 million (8.1%) in 2011. 6 With the increase in longevity, the likelihood of experiencing more non-communicable chronic conditions also increases. 7 - 9 The impact of multimorbidity is greater than the cumulative effect of the single condition.…”