Upper-arm anthropometry : an alternative indicator of nutritional health to Body Mass Index in unilateral lower-extremity amputees?

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the utility of body mass index (BMI)
and corrected-arm-muscle area (CAMA) as measures of nutritional
health for lower-limb amputees attending prosthetics
clinics.---
Design: Cross-sectional study.
Setting: Prosthetics clinic in Australia.
Participants: Unilateral lower-extremity amputees (N58;
age range, 21–91y; 37 transtibial, 21 transfemoral) attending a
regional prosthetics clinic between May and November 2003.
Interventions: Not applicable.---
Main Outcome Measures: Weight (without prosthesis),
corrected and uncorrected for the amputated limb was used
with height estimated from knee height to calculate corrected
BMI (cBMI) and uncorrected BMI (uBMI). CAMA was calculated
using the mean of triplicate mid-upper-arm circumference
(MUAC) and triceps skinfold thickness (TST) measurements.
The Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) and
Assessment of Quality of Life were administered according to
recommended protocols. The Pearson correlation was used to
determine the strength and significance of associations between
variables, and bivariate regression analyses were performed to
determine whether an association existed between the nutritional
variables (BMI, CAMA, MNA) and quality of life
(QOL).---
Results: There were no statistically significant differences in
the measures of nutritional health according to site (transtibial,
transfemoral) of amputation. MUAC, TST, and CAMA all
showed moderate to high positive correlations (r range,
.541.782) with both cBMI and uBMI. The strength of the
relationship between the MNA and cBMI/uBMI was weaker
(r.383, r.380, respectively) but remained positive and statistically
significant (P.003). QOL was not associated with
cBMI or uBMI but was related to CAMA (.132; P.030)
and MNA (.561; P.017).