This offer,
however, does not focus on nutrition in particular. This is a problem
as many elderly patients are known to develop a poor nutritional status
due to low appetite, disease etc. Our hypothesis was, that adding a
systematic nutritional focus to the Follow-home intervention program
will promote the rehabilitation of the elderly patient further.
The
study was designed as a 12 week randomized controlled intervention
study. The study sample consisted of 80 older patients (70+ years) at
nutritional risk, admitted to the geriatric ward at the Copenhagen
University Hospital Herlev, Denmark. During the stay at the hospital,
both groups received energy- and protein dense in-between meals. At
discharge the patients were randomized into the control or the
intervention group. The control group followed the usual follow-home
program. The intervention group also followed this program, but was
additionally offered 3 home visits by a Registered Dietician. The
nutritional intervention in our study focused on improving energy- and
protein intake.
Before (at the hospital) and after the intervention, data on
hand-grip strength, nutritional status, dietary intake, functional
abilities, well-being and activities of daily living were gathered. In
addition, data regarding prevalence of unplanned re-admissions and
mortality was gathered, at 3 and 6 months after discharge, respectively.
The study ran from March 2013 until December 2013, and received
funding from the Copenhagen University Hospital Herlev, Danish Regions
and the Danish Health Cartel.
Anne Marie Beck was the Project Manager.
The study was registred at ClinicalTrials.gov. Identifier: NCT01776762