Insufficient nutrition among the elderly often left unnoticed
Up to a third of residents of homes for the elderly suffer from malnutrition
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Many institutionalised Finnish senior citizens are not getting enough nutrition, according to a fresh study.
Up to a third of the elderly examined by researcher Merja Suominen were found to suffer at least moderate malnutrition. One in six residents of old people’s homes suffered from serious malnutrition.
Suominen emphasises that the availability of food is not the problem.
Typically, insufficiently nourished old people suffer from dementia, swallowing difficulties, or an overall weakening caused by a basic illness. In such cases, personnel often find it difficult to arrange proper food for the resident.
Suominen says that meals can be left uneaten if there is nobody to feed the person in question, or if the meal situation is seen to be unpleasant.
The quality of the food does not always meet the needs of the person in question. For instance, sometimes pureed food is offered even to senior citizens who would be able to eat solid food.
Staff training is seen as necessary. In a doctoral thesis defended a year ago, Suominen found that staff recognise only one in four cases of geriatric malnutrition.
In her fresh study she says that need for further training varies from one institution to another. The proportion of residents suffering from malnutrition varied between 21 per cent to nearly 50 per cent. The variation was the same for both public and private institutions.
According to development consultant Helena Soini, who deals with matters of nutrition in elderly care at the City of Helsinki, malnutrition is acted upon whenever it is noticed.
She says that in early stages of malnutrition the focus should be on the person’s exercise, frame of mind, and the attractiveness of the food as a whole. She adds that solutions are not always to be found.
“For instance, in the final stages of life, it is not necessarily possible to get a person’s weight to increase by any means. Then it is of primary importance that food is pleasant and tasty”, Soini says.
Suominen’s study continues where her thesis left off. In the thesis she studied more than 3,000 institutionalised elderly people. Now she concentrated on the state of nutrition of 327 residents of homes for the elderly in five communities. The study was funded by a company which manufactures nutrition supplements.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 3.9.2008 - TODAY |
 Insufficient nutrition among the elderly often left unnoticed |
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