Therapeutic Home Delivery Meals for Elderly Patients Through Private Catering
Journal Article
, 1. Hala Hasan, Mona Elshafie . 2013
نوع عمل المنشور:
Article
رقم العدد:
1
رقم الإصدار السنوي:
7
مستخلص المنشور:
Therapeutic Home Delivery Meals for Elderly Patients
Through Private Catering
Abstract:
Background & aim: Food is important to people in hospital and vitally important to elder patients at home. Elderly people are a vulnerable group and they should be recognized as a specific group for the purpose of nutritional health care service which needs to be fully integrated with hospitality services promotion. As the number of older people grows it becomes ever more important that they should be in good health. As for the knowledge of nutritional need the previous studies indicated that elderly people have and relatively little is known about the nutritional needs of older people than the amount knowledge of younger groups. This would not only enable them to enjoy life and be useful in their communities, meal times can provide both an enjoyable experience and the nutritional requirements to support recovery and promote health. Policy developments in the past few years have provided opportunities to drive improvements in food catering. Food service sector should obtain these opportunities to promote good quality, safe, nutritionally adequate and appropriate patient-focused food and beverage. It is estimated that 5% of elderly people in their own homes cannot cook a main meal, and that 1 in 12 people receive community meals, and 1 in 4 receive home help, others are referred to have help from family and friends ,So this study aim to obtain opinions of elder patients for home delivery service of therapeutic meals through restaurants or special catering to provide an opportunity for older individuals to live their years in dignity by providing healthy, appealing meals; promoting health and preventing disease; reducing malnutrition risk and improving nutritional status; linking older adults to hospitality services.
Methods: (220) questionnaires were distributed to elder patients on 4 hospitals in Alexandria city, It resulted in 202 completed responses with a recovery rate percentage of (91.8 %,).
Questions assessed: Demographic properties, health status data, following therapeutic diet data, Rating scale for the Therapeutic meals delivery services. Frequency and percentage were calculated as a descriptive data, the opinion of the participants evaluated by using likert scale.
Results and discussion: The results of the study suggested that the therapeutic food delivery service for the elderly is an innovative service designed to serve the elderly in their homes and the expansion of facilities for the elderly to alleviate the suffering of their shoulders, and through the provision of food needs of the elderly resident inside his house without a breadwinner or within the natural family
Key words:
Food service- therapeutic meals – elderly- home delivery- malnutrition