What Steps Can Caregivers Take to Prevent Senior Malnutrition?

Make Meals Rich in Nutrients

The best way to avoid malnutrition is to make both meals and snacks rich in nutrients. Including a variety of whole foods, including vegetables, fruits, proteins, healthy fats, and whole grains. That, unfortunately, can require quite a bit of effort and time. Aging adults may be avoiding eating a more nutritious diet simply because it involves lots of meal prep. Senior care providers can help with this, making meals for aging adults so that they can focus on simply eating.

Take the Toil Out of Meals

It is not unheard of for someone to simply never like cooking, and that can mean that they have a tough time now even thinking about eating more than convenience meals. But fast food and highly processed prepared meals are often not the most nutritious choices. They offer calories, but little else. Removing the obligation from seniors to do their own cooking can free them up to simply enjoy their meals, which can be a great first step to embracing healthier eating. Home care assistance makes quick work of tasks like this.

Rethink Meals and Snacks

Appetite changes are extremely common for aging adults, both because of health issues and simply because they may be less active than they were in the past. That can mean that a full meal is just too much, or even too intimidating, for seniors to eat. If meals and snacks are smaller and offered more often, it can be easier to get nutrients into a senior’s daily diet.

Find Ways to Add a Social Aspect to Mealtimes

Aging adults can spend an awful lot of time alone, which comes with its own problems. Combine that with a possible aversion to eating alone, and that can be a recipe for malnutrition. Ensuring that home care assistance is there with seniors helps them to have the companionship that they need, both during meals and at other times of the day. Just that one change can make a bigger difference than many family caregivers realize.

Ask Medical Providers to Screen for Malnutrition

There are lots of health issues that are either caused or significantly worsened by malnutrition, making this a massive concern for family caregivers. Sometimes the symptoms of malnutrition are not easy to spot, so it’s helpful to have healthcare providers screen aging adults for signs of nutritional deficits. This is typically easy to do through blood tests and other periodic screening tests. Spotting problems quickly helps to resolve them more quickly, too.

Malnutrition is often a sneaky health issue. Staying on top of an aging adult’s nutritional needs may mean working closely with medical providers to keep an eye on what’s going on. From there, solutions can be as simple as having home care assistance helping out with everything related to keeping healthy meals ready to go.

If you are considering home care assistance in Fairborn, OH, for an aging loved one, please contact the caring staff at Touching Hearts At Home of Dayton today at 937-870-2015.