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Hydration health literacy in the elderly
BACKGROUND: Inadequate hydration in the elderly is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. However, few studies have addressed the knowledge of elderly individuals regarding hydration in health and disease. Gaps in health literacy have been identified as a critical component in health mai...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
IOS Press
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5734130/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29276792 http://dx.doi.org/10.3233/NHA-170026 |
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author | Picetti, Dominic Foster, Stephen Pangle, Amanda K. Schrader, Amy George, Masil Wei, Jeanne Y. Azhar, Gohar |
author_facet | Picetti, Dominic Foster, Stephen Pangle, Amanda K. Schrader, Amy George, Masil Wei, Jeanne Y. Azhar, Gohar |
author_sort | Picetti, Dominic |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Inadequate hydration in the elderly is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. However, few studies have addressed the knowledge of elderly individuals regarding hydration in health and disease. Gaps in health literacy have been identified as a critical component in health maintenance, and promoting health literacy should improve outcomes related to hydration associated illnesses in the elderly. METHODS: We administered an anonymous survey to community-dwelling elderly (n = 170) to gauge their hydration knowledge. RESULTS: About 56% of respondents reported consuming >6 glasses of fluid/day, whereas 9% reported drinking ≤3 glasses. About 60% of respondents overestimated the amount of fluid loss at which moderately severe dehydration symptoms occur, and 60% did not know fever can cause dehydration. Roughly 1/3 were not aware that fluid overload occurs in heart failure (35%) or kidney failure (32%). A majority of respondents were not aware that improper hydration or changes in hydration status can result in confusion, seizures, or death. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, our study demonstrated that there were significant deficiencies in hydration health literacy among elderly. Appropriate education and attention to hydration may improve quality of life, reduce hospitalizations and the economic burden related to hydration-associated morbidity and mortality. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5734130 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | IOS Press |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-57341302017-12-20 Hydration health literacy in the elderly Picetti, Dominic Foster, Stephen Pangle, Amanda K. Schrader, Amy George, Masil Wei, Jeanne Y. Azhar, Gohar Nutr Healthy Aging Research Report BACKGROUND: Inadequate hydration in the elderly is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. However, few studies have addressed the knowledge of elderly individuals regarding hydration in health and disease. Gaps in health literacy have been identified as a critical component in health maintenance, and promoting health literacy should improve outcomes related to hydration associated illnesses in the elderly. METHODS: We administered an anonymous survey to community-dwelling elderly (n = 170) to gauge their hydration knowledge. RESULTS: About 56% of respondents reported consuming >6 glasses of fluid/day, whereas 9% reported drinking ≤3 glasses. About 60% of respondents overestimated the amount of fluid loss at which moderately severe dehydration symptoms occur, and 60% did not know fever can cause dehydration. Roughly 1/3 were not aware that fluid overload occurs in heart failure (35%) or kidney failure (32%). A majority of respondents were not aware that improper hydration or changes in hydration status can result in confusion, seizures, or death. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, our study demonstrated that there were significant deficiencies in hydration health literacy among elderly. Appropriate education and attention to hydration may improve quality of life, reduce hospitalizations and the economic burden related to hydration-associated morbidity and mortality. IOS Press 2017-12-07 /pmc/articles/PMC5734130/ /pubmed/29276792 http://dx.doi.org/10.3233/NHA-170026 Text en © 2017 – IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Report Picetti, Dominic Foster, Stephen Pangle, Amanda K. Schrader, Amy George, Masil Wei, Jeanne Y. Azhar, Gohar Hydration health literacy in the elderly |
title | Hydration health literacy in the elderly |
title_full | Hydration health literacy in the elderly |
title_fullStr | Hydration health literacy in the elderly |
title_full_unstemmed | Hydration health literacy in the elderly |
title_short | Hydration health literacy in the elderly |
title_sort | hydration health literacy in the elderly |
topic | Research Report |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5734130/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29276792 http://dx.doi.org/10.3233/NHA-170026 |
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