an Evaluation of Nutritional Status in Preoperative Mentally Retarded Persons

Objectives:

Currently it is said that nutritional care for mentally retarded persons is very important. In particular, we consider knowledge of preoperative nutritional status important, because poor nutritional status causes risks with general anesthesia and leads to a less favorable prognosis.

However, nutritional status and methods of nutritional care in regard to mentally retarded persons are less well known. Therefore we retrospectively evaluated the nutritional status of preoperative selected mentally retarded persons.

Methods:

We reviewed the clinical records, including tests such as body mass index, total protein, total cholesterol, serum iron and serum calcium for 35 cases at Kyushu Dental College Hospital in the 3-year period from January 2004 to December 2006. The subjects ranged in age from 16 to 55. The sample consisted of 18 males and 17 females.

Results:

Subjects in 4 cases were overweight, judging by body mass index. 14 cases revealed low serum iron level. No cases had abnormal results for serum protein, total cholesterol or serum calcium. However, most cases showed relatively high levels of total cholesterol.

Conclusions:

In this research we could not find a case of severe nutritional inadequacy which caused risks with general anesthesia and a less favorable prognosis. However, we determined that we need to look at results of serum iron level and total cholesterol level.

Low serum iron levels can lead to various symptoms such as microcytic anemia and reduced resistance to infection. Furthermore, high levels of total cholesterol can lead to cardiac disease. There is a possibility that these conditions would lead to risks under general anesthesia and less favorable prognosis.

We concluded that we need to gather more information about nutritional status and methods of nutritional care for mentally retarded persons in order to help provide them with safe medical procedures and a more pleasant life.