Introduction:

The Cuban population faces today the phenomenon of aging.

Objective:

To characterize proteic values in institutionalized elderly.

Methods:

A descriptive and cross-sectional study of elderly with 60 years and more who lived in the home for the aged of Santa Clara, Villa Clara, was carried out from January, 2016 to December, 2017. The universe was constituted by 366, of which a non probabilistic sample of 182 was selected. Seric values of total proteins were determined, albumin, globulins and immunoglobulins (A, G, M), as well as C3 and C4 supplement.

Results:

There was a prevalence of female sex (53.3%), white skin color (78.6%), 60-74 ages, overweight as nutritional state and history of osteoarthrosis, hypertension and hyperlipemia. Total proteins presented values of 74.00 ± 5.461 and immunoglobulins: IgA 2.57 ± 0.944; IgG 11.06 ± 2.094 and IgM 1.13 ± 0.612.

Conclusions:

a progressive decrease of total proteins, albumin, globulins and immunoglobulins (G, A and M) took place, they stayed in the range of normality but their means values were near the inferior limit of such range. With the advance of age this phenomenon increased and a higher decrease took place. The C3 and C4 complement didn't present variations related to the normal value.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )