Abstract
Introduction: Height, one of anthropometric measurements, is a very important indicator of body size for use in clinical setting, nutrition and health research. However, height is difficult to measure in nonambulatory elderly person and in those elderly persons with excessive spinal curvature. Also, the accuracy of the equations is reduced if used to estimate stature in populations in which the equation has not been derived from as all these anthropometric parameters are being influenced by many genetic, environmental and biological factors.
Aim of work: this study was conducted it to develop sex-specific equation for height estimation among Egyptian elderly females and to assess the most accurate method for estimation of height in Egyptian elderly females from 3 anthropometric parameters; demi-span, ulnar length and knee height, and to use it to develop sex-specific equation for height estimation among Egyptian elderly females.
Patient and Methods: A cross sectional study in outpatient Geriatric clinic of Ain Shams university hospitals, done on 226 community dwelling elderly females (60 years old and above). The following parameters (knee height, ulnar length, demi span) were measured and integrated into specific predictive equations and compared with the height of the participants through statistical analysis.
Results: This study showed that there are significant positive correlations between standing height and other anthropometric measurements as knee height, demi-span and ulnar length with Pearson correlation coefficient (r= 0.814, 0.739 and 0.662 respectively).
Conclusion: The correlation with knee height was found to be stronger than those with demi span and ulnar length.
Keywords: Anthropometric measurements, Egyptian elderly, demi-span, ulnar length, knee height, Predictive Equation.
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Corresponding Author
Heba Youssif Kamel
Department of Geriatric Medicine & Gerontology, Ain Shams University,
Khalifa Almamoon Street, Abbasiya, Cairo 11566, Egypt
Telephone: 0020167995991, Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18535/jmscr/v5i2.97
