Nursing Teaching Experience on Diet and Nutrition in Elderly Population

Running head: NURSING TEACHING EXPERIENCE
THE TEACHING EXPERIENCE AND RELATED OBSERVATIONS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1NURSING TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Summary of the teaching plan
The presentation on importance of diet and nutrition in elderly population was scheduled
to be delivered in an old-age care home situate nearby. The old-age care home had more than 50
residents having different type of physical and mental ailments and according to the official
survey of the care home, maximum of the elders were casual about their diet and nutritional
choices. Further, the dietary habit leads them to increase their blood pressure and blood glucose
level. Hence, the old-age home was chosen for the teaching process regarding diet and nutritional
importance in such age.
The power point presentation was 20 minutes long and was shown to all the residents in
two sections. The first section comprised of the importance of diet and nutrition in elderly
population, whereas, the second section included the nursing interventions needed for the diet
and nutrition related improvements. Further the adults were presented with the tactics that will
help them to meet their nutritional requirements. The teaching plan was described to those elders
easily as they were friendly and supportive moreover they interacted properly while the lesson.
Epidemiological rationale for the topic
The elderly population is believed to the most diverse age group as population falling in
this group are fit and active as well as very frail and weak and suffering from malnutrition. More
than 16% of the world population are above the age of 65 years and 3% are above 85 years
(WHO, 2018). According to the stats of CDC USA, more than 75% of hospital beds are acquired
by the elderly population and majority of them are found to be nutritionally challenged (Center
for Disease Control and Prevention, 2018). On the other hand, the World Health Organization
has also stated that elderly population is vulnerable to nutritional deficiency that make them

2NURSING TEACHING EXPERIENCE
vulnerable to other risk factors such as cardiac diseases, diabetes and cancer (WHO, 2018).
Therefore, it is important for them to understand the need of extra nutritional requirements of
their body, so that they can comply with their health needs. As according to WHO, aging causes
damage to nutritional needs of human body and hence, it is important for every individual to
under their increasing nutritional demand as taking care of these factors has resulted I reduction
in the risk of cardiovascular diseases by 30%.
Furthermore, Volpi et al. (2012), has described that several factors such as fibers,
proteins, iron and vitamin, salts and calcium bears much importance for elders as the lack of
these nutritional factors lead to maximum of ailments in physical and mental health.
Furthermore, hydration is also an important factor for the physical fitness in elders as it
maintains the blood pH inside the body. This topic becomes important in the context of USA, as
according to the reports of Forbes (2016), a survey, sponsored by the Academy of Nutrition and
Dietetics, the diseases related to malnutrition costs US $ 157 billion to the state and this cost has
increased by 300%. Therefore, it is more important to create awareness about the need of diet
and nutrition to lead a healthy old age among elderly population as maximum of their ailments
are related to dietary habits (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2018). Hence, this
teaching plan was delivered to the elders of the old-age home where more than 50 elders used to
stay. As according to Bergeron & Castleman (2012), spreading awareness regarding diet and
nutrition is helpful in expanding medical interventions, hence the teaching plan included
awareness as well as nursing interventions to treat diet and nutritional deficiency.