Malnutrition among older people living in institutional care : Literature review

Abstract

Abstract: Malnutrition among older people living in the institutional care is an existing problem. The aim of the thesis is to raise awareness about factors that lead to malnutrition among older people living in institutional care and to collect available information about how to observe and treat it. The study has two research questions; (1) what factors may lead to malnutrition among older people in the institutional care and (2) how the nutritional care can be improved. The method used in the study was qualitative content analysis and materials were collected from Academic Search Elite (EBSCO) and Google scholar. Information gathered from the research materials/articles were grouped into different themes according to the research question and later analysed using qualitative content analysis. The result shows that psychological and social challenge, normal ageing and functional impairments, incompetence among care professional, faulty policyand medication were identified as factors that may lead to malnutrition. Using Pender’s model of Health promotion as the framework, the author explored and analysed these factors and the challenges. Nutritional Screening, care professional training and policy reinforcement, nutritional supplement and Pharmacological solution was also found to be ways of improving nutrition among older people living in institutional care. The major limitation of this study was that the author was unable to make use of articles that were written in other European languages apart from English language due to lack of language skills.