Avaliação do perfil antropométrico dos idosos de Porto Alegre – RS: a influência da metodologia na determinação da composição corporal

• Ano de defesa: 2008
• Autor(a) principal: Gurgel, Jonas Lírio
• Orientador(a): Schneider, Rodolfo Herberto
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul; Porto Alegre
• Palavras-chave em Português: MEDICINA; GERIATRIA; GERONTOLOGIA BIOMÉDICA; IDOSOS; ENVELHECIMENTO; ANTROPOMETRIA; COMPOSIÇÃO CORPORAL
• Link de acesso: http://hdl.handle.net/10923/3564

Introduction: The elderly population is the one that grows most in the world nowadays. In the specific scientific literature related to the field of geriatrics and gerontology, population studies tackling in depth with morphofunctional aspects concerning the health of the aged are few. The fact that there is still a lack of knowledge about this population niche’s characteristics in different (social, educational, morphofunctional, physiologic, psychological etc. ) spheres, added to a rapid and increasing growth of this group, may lead to the collapse of public policies deployed nowadays. Objectives: To describe the anthropometrical profile of the elderly population of Porto Alegre. To verify whether age group has an influence on the average values of anthropometrical parameters established for the two genders. To check the influence of the ascertaining method of body composition on the average values of fat percentage in the elderly population of Porto Alegre. Methodology: In the first stage, 1,164 elders were randomly selected out of a population of 168,577 individuals (being 60 years or above) from both genders, living in the city of Porto Alegre. In the second stage, 472 elderly (335 female and 137 male) were evaluated. Weight, height, skinfolds, electric bioimpedancy (BIA) (scales and manual), circumferences and bone diameters were measured. Based on such data, BMI, AHR, WHR and the %BF were calculated by Jackson and Pollock (J&P), Tran and Weltman (T&W), Deurenberg (DEU) equations and by BIA manual and scales. BMI was classified according to the following statistic treatments (p0. 05 for all): Student’s t test for independent samples; Mann-Whitney; ANOVA one way with Bonferroni post hoc test; Kruskal-Wallis with Dunn post hoc test; ANOVA, for repeated samples with Bonferroni post hoc test; Friedman with Dunn post hoc test; Student’s t test, for paired samples; Wilcoxon; Sign Test and Pearson and Spearman’s correlations. Results: Firstly, results were described (average and SD) and presented stratified by gender. The influence of gender was evaluated and statistically significant differences were found in all the measured variables, except in relation to age, to femoris bone diameter and to abdominal and calf circumferences. Then, the results were described in average, SD and percentiles (5%, 10%, 25%, 50%, 75%, 90% e 95%), stratified by gender and age group (60-69, 70-79, 80-89 and above 90 years of age).In the results’ evaluation for the age-group influence on the behavior of variables, statistical significances were found for bodily mass (males and females) and, only in relation to females, for height, BMI, J&P BF%, manual BIA, sum of skinfolds, abdominal and waist circumference. As far as correlations are concerned, these were statistically significant for all tested methods. Conclusion: The study has proved adequate, reaching its proposed goals, presenting a reference pattern of the anthropometric variables and body composition’s behavior of the elderly population of Porto Alegre. Evaluation methods seem to influence the variables’ absolute values. Yet, by the fact that they present a significant correlation, they suggest a behavioral similarity.