Weight Loss Prevention
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ASSESS FOOD AND FLUID CONSUMPTION BETWEEN MEALS
Use our Between-Meal Snack and Oral Supplement Consumption Assessment to estimate at-risk residents' intake of food and fluid between meals. Many administrators, nurse supervisors, and dieticians mistakenly assume that residents who eat poorly at mealtimes get the extra calories they need from between-meal snacks and oral nutritional supplements. In fact, nurse aides rarely offer snacks or supplements to these residents (about once a day or less frequently) and when they do, they do not provide adequate feeding assistance or encouragement. The result is that residents consume, on average, less than 100 calories per day between meals. All of this is true even for high-risk residents with physician orders to receive snacks or supplements between meals (7, 8).
The raw data you collect with our Between-Meal Snack and Oral Supplement Consumption Assessment, which uses the same procedures as our mealtime assessment protocol, may help convince skeptical staff members that improvements are needed in the delivery of supplements, snacks, or any "hydration" program they believe exists (again, often erroneously) within the facility. Such improvements often entail:
- designating specific staff members to oversee delivery of snacks and supplements;
- monitoring by a supervisory-level staff member; and
- coordination with dietary staff to ensure that a variety of foods and fluids are available to residents between meals.
Time-Saving Tip:
Our nutrition software program can be used to organize the information that you collect related to residents' food and fluid intake during and between meals and can generate summary reports listing those residents who have low or inadequate intake.
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