The Prevalence of Frailty and Nutritional Status of the Elderly in Lesotho

A common challenge amongst the elderly is that most of them are either frail or malnourished or both and little medical attention is given to them. As a result the elderly become vulnerable and there is a need to pay more attention to their needs. This study was mainly aimed at finding the prevalence of frailty and assessing nutritional status of the elderly in Thaba-Tseka. A cross sectional study design was employed, where a purposive sample of 70 elderly was selected. Participants included 25 males and 45 females aged from 65-95. Data collection on frailty and nutritional status of elderly was conducted through a frailty questionnaire, MNA_SF and IDDS. Hand grip was taken to measure the maximum isometric strength of the hand. Findings revealed that there was a high prevalence of frailty among the elderly which was 50 % with 51 % of the elderly having grip scores below average expected values that ranged from 29.5 kg to the lowest of 6.9 kg in age groups of 60-95 years. MNA results reported a high risk of malnutrition among the elderly (43 % at risk of malnutrition and 19 % malnourished). The dietary patterns the of elderly was also reflected by the IDDS where almost all (99 %) the elderly in the study consumed monotonous, cereal based diets that lack diversity and 76 % of them having a low dietary diversity score. Most of the elderly were frail and vulnerable to frailty ( greater than50 %) and all those that were frail were also malnourished. Findings have confirmed that grip strength decreases with age.