Weight Loss Prevention
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ADVANTAGES OF THE COMBINED WEIGHT LOSS PREVENTION INTERVENTION
When paired together, our mealtime and snack interventions combine to create a single very powerful and, equally important, feasible weight loss prevention intervention. This dual intervention offers several advantages:
- Nearly 90% of residents with low intake will significantly increase their food and fluid consumption with either the mealtime or snack intervention.
- Both the mealtime and snack interventions can be implemented with groups of three (during meals) or more residents (during snacks) and still prompt residents to significantly increase their intake. This group model is a more practical alternative for some nursing homes, though it requires staff to transport residents to the dining room or another common area; residents can't eat in their own rooms.
- Nursing home staff need not provide intensive feeding assistance to all residents at mealtimes. Residents who are responsive to mealtime assistance can be identified in a two-day, or six-meal, assessment trial. Staff should concentrate their efforts on first helping these residents during meals. Residents who are not responsive to this approach become the focus of the snack intervention.
- The snack intervention fits in well with most social activities programs, as part of which snacks can be efficiently provided in larger groups (four or more residents). Many residents who are responsive to snacks require only verbal encouragement and social stimulation to increase their food and fluid intake. In our experience, social activities coordinators are willing, even eager to take on the extra responsibility of a snack program because the intervention adds a new dimension to their programs, one the residents seem to appreciate (after all, who doesn't enjoy snacks at a social event?). This arrangement leaves nurse aides free to attend to other duties.
- Our nutrition software program can be used to generate summary reports for individual residents related to their appropriateness for mealtime feeding assistance or the delivery of snacks between meals. These summary reports can be filed in residents' medical records to serve as documentation that an intervention has been put in place for that resident. In addition, a module within the software can be used to project staffing needs for daily care delivery. This allows facilities to determine exactly how many staff must be available to provide feeding assistance during each meal or snack period. If there are not enough staff available, then decisions must be made about which residents will receive assistance (e.g., those at highest risk for weight loss) or if other staff (e.g., social activities personnel, volunteers) could help (see Step 3 for a discussion of staffing strategies.
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