Arbetssätt och ätande vid ett kommunalt äldreboende
According to The National Board of Health and Welfare, about 200 000 elderly persons get some help or support with eating or nutrition problems. This was approximately 2 percent of the population. Older people in sheltered accommodation in community care were not able to manage their own nutrition. The older people were dependent on the food that was offered to them, when and how the food was served. This was a specific responsibility for the nursing staff. Malnutrition in the community care should be prevented and there should also be analyses about the risk of malnutrition. Elderly persons with malnutrition among communal health care residents should have nutritious food of high quality as a special treatment. Education and an increased awareness within the personnel could be an effective way of lowering the costs and a simple way to improve the food- and nutrition routines. The aim of this study was to identify eating problems that the nursing staff apprehended in a communal health care center according to the problems that were described. The nursing staff received education and guidance on the subject ?Older people and eating disorders?. An inquiry considering questions about the elderly and their eating disorders was handed out to the nursing staff. The majority of the nursing staff thought that they had good knowledge about eating disorders and eating problems among the older people. Shortly after the same nursing staff another inquiry form were handed out containing questions about the way they worked and their knowledge of evidence based nursing care concerning eating, the swallowing process, energy/strength environment and health of the oral cavity. This inquiry was handed out after the education they had on nutrition. The result showed that nursing staff has good knowledge on how the environment effects eating of older people. They lacked enough knowledge to be able to identify problems, when and why; nutrition care should be included as a treatment.