Assessing and treating weight loss in nursing home patients.

Any physician who cares for nursing home residents has been confronted with the problem of unintentional weight loss. This can be a particularly vexing problem when the person with weight loss has multiple medical diagnoses, takes many medications, and has some degree of cognitive impairment. Questions raised in such cases include the following: what are normal weights for the old; is some degree of weight loss part of normal aging; what are the causes of weight loss in nursing home residents; and what are the most effective means of reversing the loss.