Barriers and facilitators to screening and treating malnutrition in older adults living in the community: a mixed-methods synthesis.

Background: Malnutrition (specifically undernutrition) in older, community-dwelling adults reduces well-being and predisposes to disease. Implementation of screen-and-treat policies could help to systematically detect and treat at-risk and malnourished patients. We aimed to identify barriers and facilitators to implementing malnutrition screen and treat policies in primary/community care, which barriers have been addressed and which facilitators have been successfully incorporated in existing interventions.

Environmental interventions to promote healthier eating and physical activity behaviours in institutions: a systematic review.

Objective: The present review evaluated the effectiveness of environmental-based interventions aimed at improving the dietary and physical activity behaviours and body composition indices of adults in institutions.

Design: A systematic review was conducted. Electronic databases (MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, CINAHL, The Cochrane Library, Web of Science, ProQuest Dissertation and Theses, Scopus and Athena) were searched for relevant articles published between database inception and October 2017.

Cost-effectiveness of oral nutritional supplements in older malnourished care home residents.

Background & Aims: Malnutrition is common in care home residents, but information on the cost-effectiveness of nutritional interventions is lacking. This study, involving a randomised trial in care home residents, aimed to examine whether oral nutritional supplements (ONS) are cost-effective relative to dietary advice.

Methods: An incremental cost-effectiveness analysis was undertaken prospectively in 104 older care home residents (88 ± 8 years) without overt dementia, who were randomised to receive either ONS or dietary advice for 12 weeks.

Oral nutritional supplements in a randomised trial are more effective than dietary advice at improving quality of life in malnourished care home residents.

Background & Aims: Few trials have explored the effect of nutrition support on quality of life (QoL). This study examined the effects of oral nutritional supplements (ONS) vs dietary advice on QoL in malnourished care home residents.

Methods: 104 malnourished, care home residents (medium + high risk), identified using the Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool ('MUST'), (mean age 88.

Designing a national clinical audit of nutritional care in health and social care settings: consideration and future directions.

The aim of this review paper is to consider how the principles of clinical audit could be applied to the development of an audit of nutritional care in hospitals and care homes, based on criteria derived from the Essence of Care: Food and Drink. A literature review identified fifteen key papers that included guidance or standards for nutritional care in hospitals or care homes. These were used to supplement the ten factors suggested by the Essence of Care to develop a set of potential audit criteria covering all aspects of the nutritional care pathway including the identification of risk of malnutrition, implementation of nutritional care plans, referral to healthcare professionals for further nutritional assessment and nutritional support strategies.