Here is an article on using MUAC and height to estimate weight. This is nutritional anthropometry but the application is first response emergency medicine. If follows on a similar article from 2016 but is based on a lot more (and more recent) data. I think the method has merit and we will be looking for a small field trial. Is anyone interested in helping with that?

me, I'm interesting for help in this manner

Ezeldin Idris

Answered:

6 years ago

Dear Mark
Greeting...
the links above not open with me 
I want to ask you how we can estimate the real weight and hight of children with amputed lower limbs to asess his nutritional status 

Thank you
Fahim

Fahim alhakimi

Answered:

4 years ago

below are the links to what Mark referred to

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0197769 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0159260

Dr. W M Khan

Answered:

4 years ago

I am not sure what links you are referring to.

I am not sure what you mean by "real weight and hight [sic]". Do you mean the weight and height that the child would have if their lower limbs were present?

I think you could estimate weight from cadaver studies such as this one. You could search for references specific to children.

You could also use guidelines such as this one from the amputee coalition.

One way of getting height, often used in the eldery, would be to use a proxy such as armspan. A correction factor can be found by regressing height against arm-span and using the regression coefficients. You could do this using data collected in (e.g.) SMART surveys (you'll need to add armspan to the SMART dataset).

I assume that you want weight and height in order to calculate WHZ. If this is the case then you may want to use MUAC. This may, however, be elevated by addition muscle mass in the arms developed to overcome limitations imposed by the amputation.

I hope this is of some use.

Mark Myatt
Technical Expert

Answered:

4 years ago
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