GerontoCalc

gerontocalcMalnutrition among the elderly living in institutions or hospitals is a major public health issue. Its diagnosis is the first step to therapeutic and nutritional management.

The GerontoCalc iPad and iPhone application is a set of validated geriatric tools that help doctors assess the nutritional status and risk of malnutrition among the elderly. Malnutrition is a multi-component health disorder. GerontoCalc takes that complexity into account, and offers doctors a multiple approach for diagnosis of the disease:

      • Height extrapolation from foot-to-knee distance for elderly patients who cannot stand up, or who have shortened with age.
      • BMI (Body Mass Index) calculation based on weight and height.
      • Nutritional Risk Index (NRI) or Buzby Index, that assesses malnutrition in hospitalized adults by combining 2 indicators: albumin and weight loss.1,2,3
      • Prognostic Inflammatory and Nutritional Index (PINI) to score the overall health of patients hospitalized in an acute geriatric unit, using two blood markers of inflammatory and nutritional states4.
      • Harris and Benedict equation (HBE) that estimates the basal metabolic rate (BMR) and daily calorie requirements.
      • G8 or Oncodage, which shows whether an elderly patient is fit or not. This parameter is essential to determine whether a patient is fit enough to receive a full dose of chemotherapy.

The application was designed by Didier Buffet with the support of Laboratoires Grand Fontaine. Didier Buffet is a gerontologist, president of the Nutrisenior Association in France and an expert in the nutritional status of the elderly.

To download the GerontoCalc, click here.

References
1Buzby GP, Knox LS, Crosby LO, et al. Study protocol: a randomized clinical trial of total parenteral nutrition in malnourished surgical patients. Am J Clin Nutr 1988;47 (suppl):366–81.
2Buzby GP, Williford WO, Peterson OL, et al. A randomized clinical trial of total parenteral nutrition in malnourished surgical patients: the rationale and impact of previous clinical trials and pilot study on protocol design. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 1988;47 (suppl):357–65.
3Naber HJ, de Bree A, Schermer TRJ, et al. Specificity of indexes of malnutrition when applied to apparently healthy people: the effect of age. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 1997;65:1721–5.
4Bonnefoy M, Ayzac L, Ingenbleek Y et al. Usefulness of the prognostic inflammatory and nutritional index (PINI) in hospitalized elderly patients. International Journal for Vitamin and Nutrition Research 1998, 68(3):189-195.