Importance of Diet and Nutrition in Elderly Population

The presentation on importance of diet and nutrition in elderly population was scheduled to be delivered in an old-age care home situate nearby. The old-age care home had more than 50 residents having different type of physical and mental ailments and according to the official survey of the care home, maximum of the elders were casual about their diet and nutritional choices. Further, the dietary habit leads them to increase their blood pressure and blood glucose level. Hence, the old-age home was chosen for the teaching process regarding diet and nutritional importance in such age.

The power point presentation was 20 minutes long and was shown to all the residents in two sections. The first section comprised of the importance of diet and nutrition in elderly population, whereas, the second section included the nursing interventions needed for the diet and nutrition related improvements. Further the adults were presented with the tactics that will help them to meet their nutritional requirements. The teaching plan was described to those elders easily as they were friendly and supportive moreover they interacted properly while the lesson. 

The elderly population is believed to the most diverse age group as population falling in this group are fit and active as well as very frail and weak and suffering from malnutrition. More than 16% of the world population are above the age of 65 years and 3% are above 85 years (WHO, 2018). According to the stats of CDC USA, more than 75% of hospital beds are acquired by the elderly population and majority of them are found to be nutritionally challenged (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2018). On the other hand, the World Health Organization has also stated that elderly population is vulnerable to nutritional deficiency that make them vulnerable to other risk factors such as cardiac diseases, diabetes and cancer (WHO, 2018). Therefore, it is important for them to understand the need of extra nutritional requirements of their body, so that they can comply with their health needs. As according to WHO, aging causes damage to nutritional needs of human body and hence, it is important for every individual to under their increasing nutritional demand as taking care of these factors has resulted I reduction in the risk of cardiovascular diseases by 30%.

Furthermore, Volpi et al. (2012), has described that several factors such as fibers, proteins, iron and vitamin, salts and calcium bears much importance for elders as the lack of these nutritional factors lead to maximum of ailments in physical and mental health. Furthermore, hydration is also an important factor for the physical fitness in elders as it maintains the blood pH inside the body. This topic becomes important in the context of USA, as according to the reports of Forbes (2016), a survey, sponsored by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the diseases related to malnutrition costs US $ 157 billion to the state and this cost has increased by 300%. Therefore, it is more important to create awareness about the need of diet and nutrition to lead a healthy old age among elderly population as maximum of their ailments are related to dietary habits (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2018). Hence, this teaching plan was delivered to the elders of the old-age home where more than 50 elders used to stay. As according to Bergeron & Castleman (2012), spreading awareness regarding diet and nutrition is helpful in expanding medical interventions, hence the teaching plan included awareness as well as nursing interventions to treat diet and nutritional deficiency.

Nursing Interventions for Diet and Nutritional Improvements

While delivering diet and nutritional presentation to the elders of old-age care home, the prime purpose was to spread the awareness regarding malnutrition and its adverse effects, as well as a mean to deal with such condition (Bergeron & Castleman, 2012). However, there are some secondary purposes such as assessing the understanding of elders regarding the topic using a small questionnaire after presentation and review the diet related decisions of elders afterwards for their dietary choices. These points were included in purpose, so that it becomes easier to understand the decision making skills of elders. Therefore, the presentation was delivered in several sections such as after introducing the topic, the elders were asked to state their knowledge about the topic, which made them involve in the presentation. Further, as the presentation proceeded, the elders were asked about their daily food and diet chart and were asked to rate their nutritional habit on a scale of 10. The presentation was open for questions throughout and adults were asking a lot of questions regarding their concerns such as the reason they need more focus than younger generation regarding nutrition. Further, they were answered with the fact of WHO, that aging made them vulnerable to different diseases that need a certain kind of macro and micro-nutrition in their body (WHO, 2018). While evaluating, it should be mentioned that group of elders were very much supportive as they took part in each section actively. 

Further, while explaining the reason for malnutrition, those elders were asked about their barriers, that inhibit them to meet their daily food requirements. Maximum of them replied that loss of appetite was the primary reason for them that inhibit them to consume most of the healthy food served by the old-age care home (Solberg et al., 2012). Furthermore, few of the elders reported that they skip their meals because of tension and stress. Therefore, the presentation was able to identify the two prime reasons for diet and nutritional deficiencies of elders living in the old-age home as well as to suggest different ways to deal with the issues as presentation was included interventions related to the topic. The presentation explained the type of nutrition and diet the elders need for overall wellbeing as the way those elders can understand that the meals they are consuming is able to fulfill their dietary requirements or not. For that, they were asked to fill the Mini-Nutritional Assessment Short Form and it should be mentioned that all of them were excited to know the nutritional value of the food they consume daily (Volpi et al., 2012). Those who found their diet lacking their nutritional requirement, were eager to know the means through which they can make up their dietary requirements. Therefore, while evaluating the teaching plan, it can be stated that as learners of the teaching plan, the elders were eager, friendly and interactive throughout the session and without any hesitation were able to ask their concerns and hence the teaching experience while the session was positive and encouraging (Bridges, 2013). 

Assessing the Understanding of Elders

The elder community involved in the teaching plan ranges from 59 to 80 years old and were affected with physical and mental ailments therefore, prior to teaching plan, including them in the teaching plan was the major concern. However, unexpectedly, from the commencement of the session, the community was involved in the session as they took active part in sessions such as description of their knowledge about nutritional importance and the daily intake of their food. Further, the barriers that stop them to eat healthy and assess their daily food nutrition according to their nutritional needs.

The community asked questions regarding the importance of diet and nutrition in old age, and the means to overcome their mental and physical barriers so that they can achieve their diet needs. The response regarding the interventions was positive and this positive response led them to understand the dietary ingredients they need in their food to achieve healthy nutritious habit. Furthermore, after assessing their food nutrition level using the Mini-Nutritional Assessment Short Form, few of the participants were seen depressed or tensed however, the easy interventions and ways to balance their imbalanced nutritional habit made them hopeful and positive as the interventions were achievable (Bridges, 2013). Furthermore, as the secondary purpose was to assess the understanding of elders regarding the diet and nutritional habit, the response of elders determined the fact that they were involved in the presentation as 90% of people were able to answer correctly to 10 small close-ended questions. 

While discussing about the strengths of the teaching process, three factors should be mentioned that are time-division of the presentation, ways to include participants such as activities and the easy and achievable interventions for the elders (Solberg et al., 2012). The first factor was important as dividing the 20 minute presentation is two sections such as describing the problems and providing interventions to remove the problem was able to involve the community in the presentation. The second factor that is involved activities within the teaching plan help the community to be in contact at each step of the presentation and easier interventions were able to answer all the concerns of the elders (Eldredge et al., 2016).

On the other hand, while discussing the improvement of teaching plan, it was seen while delivering the presentation that elders were unable to connect with the world statistics about malnutrition and were asking about the USA related statistics regarding the issue. Furthermore, as the presentation lacked the examples of food products they should avoid or include in their diet, their question related to this factor was remained unanswered. Therefore, these factors should be kept in mind for future teaching plans so that each question of the target community can be answered. 

References

Bergeron, G., & Castleman, T. (2012). Program Responses to Acute and Chronic Malnutrition: Divergences and Convergences–. Advances in Nutrition, 3(2), 242-249.

Bridges, E. M. (2013). The incompetent teacher: Managerial responses (Vol. 15), 1^st edn, pp. 67-123, Routledge.

Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (2018). Nutrition | CDC. Cdc.gov. Retrieved 25 February 2018, from https://www.cdc.gov/nutrition/index.html

Eldredge, L. K. B., Markham, C. M., Ruiter, R. A., Kok, G., & Parcel, G. S. (2016). Planning health promotion programs: an intervention mapping approach, 4^th edn, pp. 123-145, John Wiley & Sons.

Forbes. (2016). Forbes Welcome. Forbes.com. Retrieved 25 February 2018, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2016/03/08/malnutrition-is-affecting-too-many-older-adults/#ea2cc5929669

Solberg, V. S., Phelps, L. A., Haakenson, K. A., Durham, J. F., & Timmons, J. (2012). The nature and use of individualized learning plans as a promising career intervention strategy. Journal of Career Development, 39(6), 500-514.

Volpi, E., Campbell, W. W., Dwyer, J. T., Johnson, M. A., Jensen, G. L., Morley, J. E., & Wolfe, R. R. (2012). Is the optimal level of protein intake for older adults greater than the recommended dietary allowance?. Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biomedical Sciences and Medical Sciences, 68(6), 677-681.

WHO. (2018). WHO | Nutrition for older persons. Who.int. Retrieved 25 February 2018, from https://www.who.int/nutrition/topics/ageing/en/index1.html