Dietary practices for older adults in institutional and non-institutional gerontological care

Abstract

The aging process dictates the daily energy needs of the elderly (aged 65 years and older) and their food intake, which depends on basic physiological needs, physical activity, individual needs of the elderly and many other factors, where monitoring of gerontological public health indicators is extremely important for health protection. This is precisely why this work is focused on reviewing the role and compliance of positive health behavior related to healthy diet of the elderly, geronto-tropometric characteristics of nutritional assessment, assessment of nutritional status via the NRS 2002 web service, assessment of energy needs of the elderly in relation to age, physical activity, morbidity, ratio of intake of macronutrients and micronutrients and the importance of the eight dietary rules for the elderly population. The main causes of mortality in the population aged 65 and over were singled out, and the main dietary norms from the manual “Nutritional-gerontological norms/menus in homes for the elderly and gerontological centers of institutional and non-institutional gerontological care” were singled out. The results state the adequacy of the quality of the menus (according the health status), as well as the importance of compliance with the energy and nutritional needs of the elderly, which will result in a healthy body mass (normal body mass index). Such achievements require an interdisciplinary approach that mainly contributes to the preservation of functional ability, disease prevention and improvement of health and quality of life in old age.