Risk of sarcopenia and associated factors in institutionalized elderly

Introduction: The elderly is the group with the highest risk of sarcopenia, a condition defined by loss of muscle mass accompanied by muscular strength and/or function, especially those who live in long-term care facilities. Objective: To verify the risk of sarcopenia in institutionalized elderly. Objective: To verify the risk of sarcopenia in institutionalized elderly. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional population-based study that evaluated 479 institutionalized elderly people regarding risk of sarcopenia (SARC-CalF Questionnaire), socioeconomic variables, comorbidities, anthropometric variables, cognitive status (Mini Mental State Examination), nutritional status (Mini Nutritional Assessment), fragility (Fried Phenotype) and functional capacity (Katz Scale). In the statistical analysis were used descriptive statistics, association tests and the crude and adjusted analysis by the Poisson Regression with robust variance. The level of significance was 5%. Results: The sample consisted of 369 elderly, 79.75 ± 9.52 years, 69.1% women. Two hundred and eighty-two elderly presented risk of sarcopenia (76.4%). Factors associated with the risk of sarcopenia were stroke, Parkinson's disease, dysphagia and frailty (p≤0.05). Conclusion: The risk of sarcopenia is high in institutionalized elderly, and stroke, Parkinson's Disease, dysphagia and frailty are predisposing factors.