Study of community-living Alzheimer’s patients’ adherence to the Mediterranean diet and risks of malnutrition at different disease stages

Abstract

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that is characterized by deficits in episodic memory. It is the most common form of dementia and affects 50–70% of patients with cognitive impairments over the age of 65. Elderly people are particularly susceptible to malnutrition and that risk is even higher in patients with AD. This study assessed the nutritional status of patients with AD at different stages of AD and explored how that status correlated with cognitive, functional and behavioural variables and caregiver overburden. The characteristics of the diet and the degree of adherence to the Mediterranean diet were also analysed.

This work has been partially funded by College of Nurses of Lleida and Department of Health of Generalitat de Catalunya (grant number SLT002/16/00384) and also was supported by “Fundació La Marató TV3” (464/C/2014) and by IRBLleida Biobank (B.0000682).