Unintentional Weight Loss with Old Age: Signs and Information

   

 I stumbled upon this interesting article recently when researching senior health, about unintentional weight loss in seniors. The article discusses the signs and possible causes of this weight loss and I found it necessary to shed light on this information. The article states that malnourishement is common as one ages, the body can harbor underlying health issues that cause nutritional issues to occur, and that a study conducted by The Institute for Biomedicine of Aging in 2010 stated that "39% of hospitalized older adults were malnourished." which shines light at the importance of understanding these signs to be important to catch early and find the cause of.

The article lists several informative steps and sections that outline signs, create awareness, and link to sources for both elderly and their caretakers, one particular excerpt I found informative was a list that they had found in the Canadian Medical Journal Review stating several possible reasons for unintentional weight-loss:

• Depression and other psychiatric conditions (9-42% of cases)

• Cancer (16-36%)

• Gastrointestinal disease (e.g. problems with the stomach or other parts of the digestive tract; 6-19%)

• Thyroid imbalances, diabetes, and other types of endocrine disorders (4-11%)

• Cardiovascular disease (2-9%)

• Alcoholism and other forms of nutritional disorders (4-8%)

• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and other respiratory disorders (~6%)

• Neurologic disorders, including those that interfere with swallowing (2-7%)

• Medication side-effects (~2%)

• Unknown after extensive evaluation (10-36%)

The article goes into deeper detail on the importance of tracking weight, how to help treat the weight loss, and how people can provide useful and helpful information to doctors when unintentional weight-loss is apparent. I of course won't just blatantly copy and paste the article to our blog, I wanted to bring awareness to this issue. There is a lot to manage as you get older, and to have as much information you can on key components and signs of possible complications age might bring is vital to making you or your loved one's lives more comfortable.

To read the full article, and to learn more about action you can take if you or a loved one is experiencing issues with unintentional weight loss, visit the link below:

https://betterhealthwhileaging.net/qa-unintentional-weight-loss-in-aging/