How To Avoid Malnutrition Of The Elderly
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Are you thinking about sending your ageing parents to a hospital or retirement village so as to make sure that they eat well? Don't! Malnutrition of the elderly, like me, only occurs in four percent of people living at home. It leaps to a shocking 50% in seniors living in hospitals etc.
Water is the first thing that you are likely to become short of. When you get my age you don't recognize thirst any more. You do feel a little uncomfortable, so you might try eating something. But it certainly doesn't feel at all like the overwhelming driving thirst that I used to experience.
Your stomach can only handle about a pint of water in one drink, so you would be better to drink about an eight-ounce glass of water every hour that you are awake, if you are in normal surroundings. If you are walking in the Australian bush at 115 degrees F, then you need to drink at least two gallons of water each day. That is quite a weight to carry, so put it in a string of bottles hanging from your waist.
From a scientific point of view, your body is a chemical factory. Hardly any chemical reactions will work without enough water being present, which is why prunes and raisins last so long without going bad. Do you like looking like a prune or raisin? Then don't drink much each day.
One myth says that elderly people don't need protein for their muscles because they don't work. Don't believe it. Protein deficiency is common in seniors, and damage may be irreversible. You should be eating at least 1g/Kg body weight (that means that you need a thousandth of your weight in protein each day. Remember, meat isn't protein, it is just fairly high in protein)
Another myth says that seniors who don't move about much don't need any calories in their food. Nonsense...Humans are warm-blooded, and need energy to keep them that way. You need about 30 Kcal/day/Kg body weight each day. Sorry, if you think in pounds you'll have to find some conversion tables, but if you weigh 150 lbs like I do, you'll need just over two thousand calories each day just to keep your body working.
We haven't even got round to considering all the minor nutrients yet, so you can understand why the staff of old-folks homes can't be bothered working out how to avoid malnutrition of the elderly.
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