Case study of a homeless man living in a low set house

Running head: Case study
CASE STUDY
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

Case study1
Case study
The essay centres round the case study of Mr. K, who is an 82 year old male who stays in
a low set house independently, without any home help. His family visits weekly and has found
that food intake of Mr. K has decreased drastically. Height of Mr. K is 176 m and his current
weight is 50 kg that is much less in comparison to the height. Hence according to the Body Mass
Index (BMI) he is underweight as his BMI is resulted to be 16.1 (Abarca-Gómez et al., 2017).
Mr. K’s food habit and lifestyle indicates that his nutritional intake is insufficient as per is age
and needs to be reviewed by an approved dietician. Mr. K starts his day with a Weetabix in the
morning with a bit of honey. He consumes spaghetti or baked beans or toast and peanut butter.
As per his statement, he does not have a heavy dinner, but largely depends on microwave meals.
Sometimes he has or two cups of tea with some powdered milk. Mr. K is a heavy smoker, with
almost 40 cigarettes, a day. He had admitted that he drinks occasionally but certainly whenever
he watched football. Mr. K had stated that he had tried to take a couple of laps of the backyard,
but it was hard to maintain. He has a past medical history of Emphysema, hypertension with
persistent cough. He is currently under short acting beta agonist long lasting beta agonist for
hypertension and anticholinergic and inhaled corticosteroids for his persistent cough.
Focussing on the dietary condition of Mr. K, he is having some major dietary deficits that
needs to be reviewed. Although there is a high prevalence of overweight in the elderly people,
one of the main concern with the elderly, is a reported decline in the intake of food. Leading an
independent quality of life and health is important for the elderly adults. One of the major threat
to an independent living is the loss of bone mineral density, loss of muscle mass and strength that
occurs with time. Hence, proper nutritional assessment of Mr. K’s diet and recommendations are
required (Choi et al., 2013).

Case study2
The case study reveals that Mr. K consumes a Weetabix for the breakfast. Although Weetabix
can be a low calorie breakfast idea and is good for losing weight, but it has to be remembered
that Weetabix are high fibre biscuits , that might constipate people, consuming it regularly
(Warin et al., 2017). As an alternative, Mr K can have milk and brown bread for the breakfast.
Mr K again consumes baked beans and a toast for lunch the. Baked beans has been found
to be a good source of low fat proteins, vitamins and carbs, that are good for managing weight
This might be one of the factors why Mr. K had lost weight so much. Again, it has to be
remembered that baked beans are canned products and might contain one or more sweeteners
like maple syrup or sweetener (Appleton, 2016). Canned baked beans have high sodium content,
which might be concerning for Mr. K, having high blood pressure. Again canned baked beans
contains some additives that can easily be avoided like modified corn starch, used as a thickening
agent , caramel colour containing chemicals called 4-methylimidazole , which is has been found
to be some carcinogenic property. Finally, the proteins that are present in beans called lectins
that can interfere with digestion, damage the intestinal lining and interfere with the hormonal
balance in the body (Franzke et al., 2018). Furthermore, the chemical, Bisphenol A (BPA) can
leach in to food (Trasande, 2014). According to Wolfe, (2012), older adults should include more
protein in their diet as the while losing weight. During this lifespan, the body generates less
amount of protein in comparison to actual need to maintain bone health, muscle mass and other
physiological function of the body. As per the recent researches, older adults who consume more
proteins are less likely to lose functioning of the body (Appleton, 2016). In a 2016 study
conducted over more than 2900 seniors, it has been found that people who ate more proteins are

Case study3
less likely to become functionally impaired compared to those who consumed less proteins
(Appleton, 2016). It is recommended to eat smaller meals with high calorie value throughout the
day rather than eating two larger meals. It is seen that smaller meals helps in the process of
digestion which in turn helps in gaining of weight (Franzke et al., 2018).
It can be clearly seen from the case study that the Mr. K lives independently and does not
have a home help and thus consumes ready meals every day. Nutrients can be lost from meals
due to the some cooking process. It has to be remembered that some of the makers of ready
meals might compromise health by the substitution of healthy ingredients with the ones that are
less healthy. Due to the consumption of the ready-made meals, it has been found that the elderly
people are not getting adequate heart and brain healthy omega-3-fatty acids and vitamin B,
vitamin D or minerals like magnesium calcium and selenium (Padma, 2014). According to the
findings by Padma, (2014), lost nutrients are only not the concern. Meats when roasted or grilled
at high temperature produces carcinogenic compounds like heterocyclic amines. This
information is in context, that Mr. K often takes roasted meals whenever he meets his family at
the weekends. Hence, regular consumption of roasted food is not a god option for Mr. K, due to
health condition of Mr K and consumption of these food might deteriorate the condition of his
heart.
As per the case study, Mr K is an avid smoker and smokes up to 40 cigarettes in a day.
Multiple studies have shown that, Cigarette smoking is a risk factor of cardiovascular diseases
and smoking cessation is the most important life style intervention that could be done to prevent
a large number of cardiovascular diseases. Some of the harmful effect of smoking are the
impairment of endothelial function, inflammation, arterial stiffness, lipid modification and the
alteration of the prothrombotic and the antithrombotic factors that leads to the initiation and the