Equipment Grant provides the CRE Frailty Research team with a bioelectrical impedance analyser.
Dr Beatriz Martins from the Centre of Research Excellence in Frailty and Healthy Ageing was the first researcher within the Basil Hetzel Institute to use the new InBody 570 analyser purchased with an equipment grant from The Hospital Research Foundation.
A person’s weight consists not only of fat but also of water, bone and muscle. All these tissues contribute to a person’s health and well-being. The InBody 570 provides a fast and accurate method of multi-frequency bioelectrical impedance analysis of over 40 parameters relevant to a person’s body composition.
Dr Martins is using the analyser for her study on the influence of the neighbourhood’s environment on healthy ageing. She will look at the body composition of older South Australians, as well as other physiological parameters, to determine its’ relationship with local environment and the development of sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass and strength) and frailty. As we age the proportion of fat mass against muscle mass changes, and this may contribute for loss of independence, increase risk of falls, reduced quality of life and increased likelihood of death. Finding the connection between how body composition changes occur in the elderly population with the environment may help us understand how sarcopenia and frailty develops in our communities.
This new analyser makes this type of research possible and will be essential to many researchers using biometric measures of research within the BHI.
