A new nutrition screening tool has recently been launched to help corr
ect the neglect of the problem of malnutrition in elderly Australians.
It is estimated that up to 30% of people over 60 years of age living
independently in the community ave suffering from malnutrition. poor n
utrition increases the time an older person requires to recover from a
cute illness, and bads to longer hospital stays, more complications an
d higher readmission rates. These factors all lend to a poor health ou
tcome and increased health cave costs, The Australian Nutrition Screen
ing Initiative is a checklist to be used to identify those elderly peo
ple,who may be at risk from malnutrition. This screening initiative re
presents the first national effort to raise tire awareness of the prob
lem of malnutrition among elderly people by bringing together organisa
tions with a common interest in this problem.