Changes in bowel elimination patterns (BEP) for elders admitted to an acute care hospital is essentially unknown. This exploratory study compared a group of 154 elderly with 149 middle-aged subjects from two northern New England hospitals. Interviews, diaries, questionnaires, chart reviews, the Nagley VAS for Confusion, Katz Index of ADL and MEDISGRPS were used in data collection. Analysis included descriptive statistics, t-tests, and multiple regression. During hospitalization, the BEP of both groups changed significantly, but there was no difference between groups on the degree of change. Multiple regression analysis was used to examine the effects of diet and activity on degree of change in BEP while controlling for effects of gender, severity of illness, functional status, and cognitive status; producing a significant coefficient for only the elderly subjects (R2=.13, p, .01). Therefore, these results support the supposition that acitivity and diet play a greater role in changes in BEP for elderly patients than middleaged patients admitted to an acute care hospital.