Feeding difficulties in long-stay patients at nursing homes. Caregiver turnover and caregivers' assessments of duration and difficulty of assisted feeding and amount of food received by the patient.
The caregivers from 21 out of 24 nursing homes in the county of Västerbotten, Sweden, recorded the behaviour at feedings of the patients who were totally dependent on assisted feeding during a 4-week period. The observations were conducted on 214 patients. These patients had a median age of 82 yr. The eating difficulty was predominantly associated with the diagnosis of dementia (n = 110), cerebrovascular disease (n = 30) and Parkinsonism (n = 16). Each patient had different feeders at different meals, with a median of 16-20 feeders for one patient during a 4-week period. Of all assisted feedings, 94% were finished within 20 min. The incidence of feeding refusal was 2%. The degree of feeding difficulty and the amount of food ingested were assessed by the caregivers as fairly constant for each patient. It is reasonable to assume that a patient assignment system for the nurses could improve the eating ability of these patients.
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005502:Food; D006801:Humans; D008134:Long-Term Care / Q000523:psychology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009732:Nursing Care; D009735:Nursing Homes; D010563:Personnel Turnover; D013548:Sweden; D013997:Time Factors