Abstract
Objective: To determine the nutritional status and protein intake of elderly patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and its association with the degree of PD evolution. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out with 31 elderly patients of both genders with PD from the Neurology outpatient clinic of a public hospital. The nutritional status was evaluated, and the 24-hour Recall was used to evaluate caloric and protein intake. The Pearson chi-square test and the non-parametric Mann-Whitney test were used to verify the association between the variables, by Stata® software version 13.1. Results: 61.3% of the participants were male. Regarding the diagnosis of the Body Mass Index (BMI), 45% of the patients had adequate weight for height and 22.6% had low weight. The mean BMI was 26.78 kg / m2. Protein intake was greater than 0.8 g / kg / day, as recommended by the Institute of Medicine's Dietary Reference Intakes (DRI). The average protein intake was 1.22 g / kg / day, with the highest consumption in the first three meals (breakfast, morning snak and lunch): 50.17 g, when compared to the average consumption in the last three meals (afternoon snack, dinner and evening snack) of 38.37 g. Conclusion: There was no association between nutritional status and protein intake with the stage of the disease and the time course of PD.