P073 - ONE SIMPLE QUESTION TO DETECT ALL GERIATRIC SYNDROMES: HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED LOSS OF APPETITE?

P073

ONE SIMPLE QUESTION TO DETECT ALL GERIATRIC SYNDROMES: HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED LOSS OF APPETITE?

P. Unsal¹, E. Caran Karabacak¹, B. Gokce¹, E. Oktay Oguz¹, G. Sengul Aycicek^2,*, M. Halil³

¹Geriatrics, Etlik City Hospital, ²Geriatrics, Etlik City Hospital, University Of Health Sciences, ³Geriatrics, Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine, Ankara, Türkiye

Rationale: Appetite loss is a crucial clinical problem in older adults and is associated with malnutrition, sarcopenia, frailty, and other geriatric syndromes.

Methods: Two hundred forty-two community-dwelling older adults were included in the study. Comprehensive geriatric assessment was performed, and appetite was evaluated with the Simplified Nutritional Assessment Questionnaire (SNAQ).

Results: The mean age of the patients was 77.67 ± 6.8, and 174 (71.9%) were female. The prevalence of appetite loss was 42.6%. Depression, loneliness, insomnia, malnutrition, frailty, and pain were more common in patients with appetite loss (p<0.005). SARC-F scores were higher, the hand grip strength (HGS) was lower, and timed up and go (TUG) was longer in these patients with poor appetite. ‘Have you experienced loss of appetite?’ – a question of the SNAQ test – was correlated negatively with PHQ-2, CFS, SARC-F, TUG, the chair stand test, and EAT-10 scores, and positively with mini-Cog, ADL, IADL, MNA-SF test, and HGS. In multivariate analysis, this question is associated with malnutrition (OR: 0.5, 95% CI: 0.388-0.645, p<0.001) and HGS (OR: 0.922, 95% CI: 0.871-0.645, p=0.006) independent of other variables.

Conclusion: Appetite loss is an important symptom that is associated with geriatric syndromes. It should be evaluated in all older patients with one simple question.

Disclosure of Interest: None declared