Eating Difficulties, Nutrition, Meal Preferences and Experiences Among Elderly A Literature Overview From a Scandinavian Context

The risk of malnutrition increases with ageing, resulting in poorer health and higher risk of disease. Eating difficulties are important risk factors for malnutrition. Moreover, independence in relation to food and meals is highly rated by the elderly and has been associated with health and well-being. The purpose of this literature overview was to provide insights into nutritional status, food choice and preferences as well as the meal situations of home-living elderly (65+) people with motoric eating difficulties focusing on Scandinavia. The overall aim is to support independence and to prevent malnutrition. Nutritional status in the elderly was found to be negatively influenced by motoric eating difficulties including problems with manipulating food on the plate and transporting food to the mouth. Motoric eating difficulties may result in practical simplifications such as use of pre-prepared meals, less advanced cooking, and omission of certain meal constituents in order to avoid e.g. mismanagement and spillage. Eating difficulties are often accompanied by feelings of guilt and shame. Choosing smaller portions, reducing the number of eating episodes and not cooking independently have been associated with a higher risk of malnutrition. The nutritional effects of eating difficulties may be exacerbated by diminished chemosensory functions. Furthermore, both past and present food preferences should be considered in order to meet nutritional needs and meal satisfaction. Development of refined and socially accepted eating aids, in combination with tasty and nutritious products, is important in order to promote healthy and independent living among home-living elderly with motoric eating difficulties.

Download Full-text

Monitoring Health Parameters of Elders to Support Independent Living and Improve Their Quality of Life

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s21020517 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (2) ◽

pp. 517

Author(s):

Ilia Adami ◽

Michalis Foukarakis ◽

Stavroula Ntoa ◽

Nikolaos Partarakis ◽

Nikolaos Stefanakis ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Quality Of Life ◽

Independent Living ◽

Elderly Population ◽

Well Being ◽

The Elderly ◽

Chronic Illnesses ◽

Age Related ◽

Self Sufficiency ◽

Health And Well Being

Improving the well-being and quality of life of the elderly population is closely related to assisting them to effectively manage age-related conditions such as chronic illnesses and anxiety, and to maintain their independence and self-sufficiency as much as possible. This paper presents the design, architecture and implementation structure of an adaptive system for monitoring the health and well-being of the elderly. The system was designed following best practices of the Human-Centred Design approach involving representative end-users from the early stages.

Download Full-text

Energy Saving in Forward Fall Detection using Mobile Accelerometer

International Journal of Distributed Systems and Technologies ◽

10.4018/jdst.2013010106 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 78-94 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Vo Quang Viet ◽

Ali Fahmi Perwira Negera ◽

Hoang Minh Thang ◽

Deokjai Choi

Keyword(s):

Mobile Phone ◽

Independent Living ◽

Dynamic Time Warping ◽

Fall Detection ◽

Well Being ◽

The Elderly ◽

Time Warping ◽

Save Energy ◽

Dynamic Time ◽

Health And Well Being

Fall injury is one of the biggest risks to health and well-being of the elderly especially in independent living because falling accidents may cause instant death. There are many research interests aimed to detect fall incidents. Fall detection is envisioned critical on ICT-assisted healthcare future. In addition, mobile battery is currently another serious problem in which performance feasibility is considered as a standard to verify an effective method. In this paper, the authors study forward fall detection method from mobile phone perspective using accelerometer only without sacrificing accuracy to save energy. Using peak threshold algorithm in axes of mobile accelerometer, transition from activity of daily living (ADL) to forward fall event is recognized. In collected templates, Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) was applied to compute difference among them with new unlabeled samples. Results implemented on mobile phone easily show the feasibility of the method hence contribute significantly to fall detection in healthcare.

Download Full-text

Reasoning support for risk prediction and prevention in independent living

Theory and Practice of Logic Programming ◽

10.1017/s147106841000058x ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 11 (2-3) ◽

pp. 361-395 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

A. MILEO ◽

D. MERICO ◽

R. BISIANI

Keyword(s):

Independent Living ◽

Clinical Care ◽

Population Monitoring ◽

Expressive Power ◽

Well Being ◽

The Elderly ◽

Sensor Data ◽

Care For The Elderly ◽

Prediction And Prevention ◽

Correlation Rules

AbstractIn recent years there has been a growing interest in solutions for the delivery of clinical care for the elderly because of the large increase in aging population. Monitoring a patient in his home environment is necessary to ensure continuity of care in home settings, but, to be useful, this activity must not be too invasive for patients and a burden for caregivers. We prototyped a system called Secure and INDependent lIving (SINDI), focused on (a) collecting a limited amount of data about the person and the environment through Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), and (b) inferring from these data enough information to support caregivers in understanding patients' well-being and in predicting possible evolutions of their health. Our hierarchical logic-based model of health combines data from different sources, sensor data, tests results, common-sense knowledge and patient's clinical profile at the lower level, and correlation rules between health conditions across upper levels. The logical formalization and the reasoning process are based on Answer Set Programming. The expressive power of this logic programming paradigm makes it possible to reason about health evolution even when the available information is incomplete and potentially incoherent, while declarativity simplifies rules specification by caregivers and allows automatic encoding of knowledge. This paper describes how these issues have been targeted in the application scenario of the SINDI system.

Download Full-text

Designing for the Elderly : Comfort, Health and Well-Being

مجلة التصميم الدولية ◽

10.12816/0036457 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 59-70

Author(s):

Islam M. Obeidat ◽

Saif M. Obeidat

Keyword(s):

Well Being ◽

The Elderly ◽

Health And Well Being

Download Full-text

Creation of Outdoor Space for the Elderly

Advanced Materials Research ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.671-674.2185 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 671-674 ◽

pp. 2185-2188

Author(s):

Hong Yun Xin

Keyword(s):

Independent Living ◽

Elderly Population ◽

Well Being ◽

The Elderly ◽

Social Needs ◽

Outdoor Environment ◽

Urban Elderly ◽

Outdoor Activities ◽

Outdoor Space ◽

Mental Well Being

With a rapid increase of the urban elderly population in China, it has become more and more important that suitable outdoor environment should be constructed for the aged. This paper puts forward some ideas and suggestions on how to create space for various outdoor activities for the aged in their neighborhood to meet their life, physiological, psychological and social needs of outdoor activities, as well as analyses a varied and multi-leveled environment for outdoor activities beneficial to their physical and mental well being and their capability of independent living, and there is a hope that it will be good to their health and longevity. In order to promote the sound development of the society, it is necessary to appeal for people's attention to the construction of outdoor environment for the aged.

Download Full-text

Practical Computing

Practicing Anthropology ◽

10.17730/praa.13.1.g517804021292218 ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

pp. 28-30

Author(s):

William Leonard

Keyword(s):

Nutritional Status ◽

Well Being ◽

Nutritional Intervention ◽

Physical Growth ◽

Sensitive Indicator ◽

Anthropometric Measures ◽

Health And Well Being ◽

Height For Age ◽

Weight For Age

Anthropometric measures such as height, weight, limb circumferences, and skinfolds are very simple yet powerful tools for evaluating physical growth and nutritional status. When applied to children under the age of 5 years, these measures provide a sensitive indicator of health and well-being among anthropological populations. In particular, such basic indices as height-for-age, weight-for-age and weight-for-height can be used to identify households and subpopulations where nutritional intervention is necessary.

Download Full-text

Prevalence of insomnia in elderly and drug prescriptions

European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education ◽

10.1989/ejihpe.v1i1.85 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 5-12

Author(s):

Consuelo Ibañez ◽

Diego R. Dueñas ◽

Mª Rosa Sánchez-Waisen

Keyword(s):

Older People ◽

Sleep Disorders ◽

Psychotropic Drugs ◽

Well Being ◽

The Elderly ◽

Medical Comorbidity ◽

High Demand ◽

Health And Well Being ◽

Very High ◽

Diagnosis Age

Sleep disorders are very frequent in the elderly and it affects health and well-being of older people. Some authors estimate that the prevalence of insomnia in the elderly is very high, close to 60%. Sleep disorders in the elderly are frequent and it causes high demand for care. Some authors think that it will affect a lot in health of older people and those who take care of them. This could bring an increase of institutionalization. With this work we wanted to measure prevalence of insomnia in those chronic and psychogeriatric patients who are in nursing-homes, and which psychotropic drugs are prescribed for control it. In addition, we have studied if there is significant relationship between psychiatric diagnosis, neurologic diagnosis, age or sex, medical comorbidity, and the presence of insomnia.

Download Full-text

Planning for mental wellbeing in an old age home during the Covid-19 pandemic by homoeopathic institution: Structuring the intervention

Journal of Integrated Standardized Homoeopathy ◽

10.25259/jish_24_2021 ◽

2022 ◽

Vol 4 ◽

pp. 106-111 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Mansi Surati ◽

Manoj Kanchanbhai Patel ◽

Sunita Bhanudas Nikumbh ◽

Rajesh Ramkunwar Yadav ◽

Abhishek Dnyaneshwar Kukde ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Old Age ◽

Independent Living ◽

Action Learning ◽

Well Being ◽

The Elderly ◽

Mental Wellbeing ◽

Extensive Literature ◽

Accurate Identification ◽

Learning Principles ◽

Mental Well Being

Objectives: During the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, the risk to the mental well-being of the elderly living in an old age home (OAH) has increased considerably. Dealing with this issue requires special measures. The current literature has very few examples of such programmes. We aimed to promote emotional balance and an independent living with positive outlook on life among the residents of the OAH facility during the pandemic based on action learning principles. This programme was conducted in an OAH that our institute has been associated with for several years. HelpAge India, a non-governmental organisation working in India to assist disadvantaged senior citizens, provided a programme that covered 12 themes. This article deals with the structuring process of the programme. Materials and Methods: The team comprised homoeopathic consultants and the faculty and students of a postgraduate homoeopathic institute. An extensive literature search and consultation with experts from various fields enabled the team to plan and build the final programme were evolved. Results: Broad themes gave rise to distinct modules and objectives were derived for each of these. Detailed action plans were worked out and a plan of evaluation for each of these modules was worked out. Conclusion: Planning a programme to ensure well-being needs a close and accurate identification of the needs of the residents of a particular OAH. A multidisciplinary approach can help in evolving effective strategies to formulate models for geriatric mental well-being.

Download Full-text