Estimates of body weight of long-term care clients

Objective: Long-term care (LTC) clients are usually bed-ridden, have poor mobility and are unable to perform activities of daily living. To measure body weight (Weight) of LTC clients is difficult in diverse settings. Patients and Methods: In order to estimate LTC clients' Weight, we selected five nursing homes and measured the residents' Weight, hip circumference (HC), mid-upper arm circumference (MAC), and knee height (KH). Data were analyzed with SAS, Minitab and Statistica computer software. Results: Rigorous statistic analysis helped us select the best equation for estimating LTC clients' Weight as follow: Male = -33.420 + 0.793HC + 0.791MAC (R²=0.841); Female = -37.187 + 0.745HC + 0.831MAC (R²=0.843). The second best equation for estimating Weight was as follows: Male = -33.813 + 1.032HC (R²=0.804); Female = -42.673 + 1.059HC (R²=0.796). Conclusions: For LTC clients, we can use HC and MAC to estimate their body weight.