Prevalence and Potentially Reversible Factors Associated With Anorexia Among Older Nursing Home Residents: Results from the ULISSE Project

Anorexia of Aging

“…In a study of 1904 nursing home residents in Italy, reversible factors such as depression, pharmacologic therapies, and chewing problems were associated strongly with anorexia, which was defined as low food intake or the presence of low appetite. 49 Anorexia in the study was associated independently with increased mortality.…”

Improving Food and Fluid Intake for Older Adults Living in Long-Term Care: A Research Agenda

“…27 The prioritized determinants listed in Table 1 are all amenable to nutritional intervention and feasible in the LTC context; the following discussion will be focused on the top 9 in which rank scores were greater than 50. 9,14,15,28 Social interactions involving the resident during mealtimes was the number 1eranked determinant. Limited previous research has identified the importance of psychosocial interactions in LTC, 14,29,30 but research has yet to demonstrate that social interactions alone are an independent predictor of food intake in LTC.…”

“…5) are all well-known determinants of food intake. 1,9,28 The LTC environment often limits the resident's capacity to participate in self-feeding. 35 Montessori and other staff-training programs to enhance residents' self-eating abilities have been developed and may promote maintenance of nutritional status, 36,37 but are often targeted to a limited group and sustained effects of training are unclear.…”

“…For example, self-eating ability may be improved in more intimate dining spaces, 39 potentially due to improved behaviors for persons with dementia. 28 It is anticipated that spaces also influence how care happens with more homelike, small-scale environments facilitating person-directed care. These contentions need to be explored specifically with respect to dining environments and food intake in LTC to demonstrate the direct effect of the physical environment on resident food intake.…”

Interventions for Improving Mealtime Experiences in Long-Term Care

“…Multicomponent interventions have the potential to address the multiple risk factors of poor food intake in LTC. At this point, multilevel prevalence studies to determine those factors most influential to food intake in LTC is limited and has not always focused on factors amenable to change (7,(36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41)(42)(43).Of the three domains described that influence food intake, the mealtime experience has been an area where several diverse interventions have been developed. Many of these interventions are multicomponent (more than one strategy=activity) (11,18,(44)(45)(46)(47)(48)(49)(50)(51)(52) and some are multilevel (e.g., at the level of the dining room as well as training of staff) (7, 53-61).…”