Poor Nutrition of Elderly Patients in Acute Hospital

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Introduction

A deficiency of nutrition is the condition known as Malnutrition or poor nutrition. Malnutrition could be the shortage, excess and imbalance of multiple nutrients like vitamins and proteins which can causes functional and medical problems in human body. Nutrition is the quality and quantity of the energy a human body receive through food. The digestive system breakdowns the food into different energy molecules, which are required by the body for multiple functions like carbohydrates, proteins, minerals and vitamins (Astrup and O’Connor, 2018).  Nutrition means all the processes how body get nutrients, breakdown them then use it for all functions of the body.  If the body does not have all the required nutrition then body will be unable to perform properly. Food and nutrition is primary need of all living humans. The process to provide the energy to human body to perform a variety of functions is known as nutrition. Deficiency of all nutrients or malnutrition could be the cause of different diseases, weakness and disabilities to perform basic tasks. The problem of malnutrition increases with growing age. Poor nutrition condition and malnutrition is of high concern in the elderly age group. More than 16 % of the people above 65 years age and 2 % of the people above 85 years age are victim of malnutrition or poor nutrition and these numbers will increase over the period of time. Only 1 % of the adults who are healthy and independent have the poor nutrition conditions. In America people older the 65 years of age consume less than thousand calories per day, and according to a statistic these people are at higher risk to malnutrition. This percentage of the risk increases if they already have some medical conditions, less financial resources and low availability of medical facilities. Poor nutrition is one of the important issues (Pourhassan and Wirth, 2018). Almost 12 to 50 % of the elderly patients who are hospitalized are suffering from malnutrition and 23 to 60 % of the elderly patients who are in adult care institutes are suffering from mal nutrition due to depression and the use of antidepressant, poor nursing staff or unhealthy or insufficient food. Poor nutritional conditions causes weight loss which leads to continuous decline in health conditions, reductive physical and mental health (Borglin et al., 2019). Poor health conditions leads towards increase use of health care facilities and early deaths. Many health care doctors highlighted the issues that contribute in poor nutrition or malnutrition. It is generally assumed that malnutrition is an undeniable result of aging and other disease and effects of poor nutrition is very minimal. Proper checkups on regular basis of nutrition levels of the elder persons should be done, despite they are in outpatient, acute care hospital or in institutional care (Borum, 2004).

Elderly populations are increasing worldwide, there is stronger need to change and improve the health care facilities in acute care hospitals to meet the changing requirements of elder patients as they are major user of the acute hospitals. In USA major percentage of the hospital customers are of 65 and above age. Same is the case with Australia where there is 18 % increase is use by the hospital by the age of 55 and above and 9 % by the 85 and above. Older people have more complex and complicated medical needs and malnutrition is a very common problem (Astrup and O’Connor, 2018). 90 % of the older people who use hospital facility are victim of poor nutrition and or are at the risk of the malnutrition. There are multiple factors of being a malnutrition victim, which includes physical, mental, social (age and financial condition) and reoccurring diseases. Sometime side effects of medications can also cause nutrition deficiency in elderly patient. The condition of the poor nutrition also gets worst when the elder people get hospitalised due to poor quality food and very few options, personal choices and preferences, meal timings, unprofessional feeding staff and poor eating conditions. Keeping is view that patient nutrition is important in the acute care which affects the recovery of the patients. If the patient has poor nutrition condition it will lead to longer stays in hospitals, increasing hospital bills and death rates. Recent studies emphasised that the nutritional needs of the patients in acute care should be meet through healthy and balance diets which includes enough solid food and fluids containing all minerals, proteins and vitamins. This is especially important for the elderly patients in acute hospitals because the poor nutrition has increased effects on them and their health and recovery speed from illness (Persenius, and Lord, 2009).

Literature Review

Nutrients is the energy that we consume through the food, the metabolic process convert the food energy with the help of digestive system which absorb by the blood cells to perform different functions. Balance nutrition promotes Health, better quality of life and normal growth. On the other hand the lack of nutrition, extra nutrition and poor nutrition contributes to bad medical and health conditions (Resource: Malnutrition, 2013). The abnormalities in the nutrition level leads towards bad health conditions and many fatal diseases like hypertension, obesity, diabetes, bones and heart problems. Studies have showed that less intake of vegetables and fruits can cause cancer and heart diseases low consumption of food with high fibers can increase the risk of being overweight. Each and every function of human body demands energy which is produced by the consumption of food. Growth and development and the repair process undertaken in human body needs protein and other multiple nutrients. The primary function of body is dependent on water and oxygen, oxygen carries the blood to the cells with the help of protein and haemoglobin.  Water helps the breakdown process of carbohydrates(Borum, 2004).

Malnutrition or poor nutrition is the outcome of eating a diet which is not balanced containing more or less nutrients then the requirement that can cause many medical issues. Excess amount of nutrition is called over nutrition and deficiency of nutrients is called malnutrition or under nutrition, these nutrients are the calories from fats, carbohydrates, proteins and minerals. Malnutrition is usually considered as the condition of not consuming enough calories and micronutrients known as the under nutrition.  If a women faces undernutrition during the pregnancy or in the early age of two, it may lead to physical and mental development problems for the lifetime (Evans, 2005)

. If someone have acute malnutrition conditions due to hunger and lack of food it will cause development issues, like low body mass index like thin legs, low energy levels, short height and inflammation on tummy.  Victims of malnutrition might have reoccurring cold and more likely get infected by viral disease.  Side effects of malnutrition surly depends upon the fact what micro nutrients are missing from the food intake which are essential for the proper and healthy individuals.

Poor dietary intake and unhealthy food may look like the major cause of the malnutrition but in reality poor nutrition might be due to many other physical, physiological and social reasons. With the growing age many changes occurs in human body like change taste buds, smell, major decline in appetite which leads to enjoying and consuming less food items and maintain a healthy eating pattern. Different digestive diseases might create all of issues including inflamed digestive track. Such persistent issues can result in decrease in desire to eat food and human ability to absorption of nutrients in body (Resource: Malnutrition, 2013).

Issues with the ability to chew, swallow or quality of teeth health can all add to facilitate eating. Even if you are physically impaired to handle the cutlery can result in affecting eating habits. Many behavioural, mental or memory issues can make people forget about food intake or even create abnormal eating patterns. Dementia or Alzheimer’s can be enlisted among the few. If you are on any kind of medication, it can also adversely affect your eating pattern or quality of nutrient absorption. Restriction on certain kind of foods to help other diseases, such as diabetes, can also result in eating disorders. Many a times, financial pressure leads to people being unable to afford different types of food. This is more difficult for the people who are already suffering strain on their income to buy medicine. Eating alone or other socially awkward people tend to not eat properly or are unable to enjoy food because they lose interest in eating. Geographical constraints may limit people’s ability to various kinds of foods. Another major factor which affects people appetite is depression. People in habit of excessive alcohol consumption develop eating and digestive disorders, which hinder their ability to absorb nutrients as well (Borglin et al., 2019)…………………………………………………continued