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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Malnutrition and dehydration in nursing homes
— key issues in prevention and treatment | | Author(s) | Sarah Greene Burger, Jeanie Kayser-Jones, Julie Prince Bell |
| Corporate Author | National Citizens' Coalition for Nursing Home Reform; Commonwealth Fund |
| Publisher | Commonwealth Fund, New York, 2000 |
| Pages | 53 pp (no.386) (plus 1 Briefing note) |
| Source | The Commonwealth Fund, One East 75th Street, New York, NY 10021-2692, USA. |
| Keywords | Malnutrition ; Dehydration ; Patients [nursing homes] ; Preventative medicine ; Therapeutics ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | Despite federal laws - including the Nursing Home Reform Act 1987 - requiring nursing homes to meet residents' nutrition needs, at least a third of the 1.6 million nursing home residents in the US may suffer from malnutrition or dehydration. The consequences can be potentially serious, with under-nutrition associated with infections, pressure sores, anaemia, hypotension, cognitive impairment, confusion, decreased wound healing, hip fractures, and depression. Poor oral health also contributes to inadequate intake of nutrition, as do stroke, Parkinson's disease, dementia and other neurological diseases. Within the nursing home setting, inadequate staffing, a lack of individualised care, high staff turnover, and a lack of professional supervision are identified, as are limited choices of food. The authors call for changes in public policy to tackle staffing standards, training, record keeping, ensuring proper dental hygiene, and food provision, with penalties for failure to enforce procedures. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-000727201 B |
| Classmark | CSM: CST: LHB:LF: LK2: LL: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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