BMJ  2006;332:1334-1335 (3 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7553.1334-d

Letter

Benefits of family mealtimes for nursing home residents

Protecting mealtimes may similarly benefit elderly inpatients

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—The study by Nijs et al of Dutch elderly nursing home residents showed that improving the ambience at mealtimes prevents a decline in body weight.¹ A decline in nutritional status during hospital stay may be the result not only of illness but also of problems with feeding and catering policies, such as poor environment, lack of help with eating, and interruption of meals by procedures and ward rounds.² Another reason is limited time available to eat each meal in the hospital.³

In the United Kingdom protecting mealtimes is an imaginative solution to improve nutrition of hospital patients in the better hospital food programme of the Department of Health. We conducted a pilot study in two medical wards for elderly patients at Castle Hill Hospital in West Yorkshire to check the effect of protected mealtimes in elderly hospital patients. The intervention was protection for an hour during lunchtime and . . . [Full text of this article]

Pontefract General Infirmary, Pontefract WF8 1PL abhaylopa@yahoo.co.uk

Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, Hull HU3 2JZ

Department of Biostatistics, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9LN

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Relevant Article

Effect of family style mealtimes on quality of life, physical performance, and body weight of nursing home residents: cluster randomised controlled trial

Kristel A N D Nijs, Cees de Graaf, Frans J Kok, and Wija A van Staveren
BMJ 2006 332: 1180-1184. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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