Improving Appetite in Geriatric Patients: A Research Proposal

Running head: REASEARCH PROPOSAL
REASEARCH PROPOSAL
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

1REASEARCH PROPOSAL
Introduction
Ageing is associated with several physiological changes that can cause a decrease
appetite. Changes to the digestive system, changes to the responsiveness and the levels of the
certain hormones is also necessary for the decreased appetite of the older adults (Divert et al.,
2014). Again, the presence of acute infections might lead to a decreased appetite in elderly
patients. Hence, it is the responsibility of the geriatric nurses to look out for the ways to improve
the refusal to the eating behavior in elderly. This paper will discuss about an intervention for
improving the appetite of the geriatric patients in a clinical setting.
Background
As set out in a case report by Meier and Ong (2015), patients, be it an adult patient or
geriatric patient, have got the autonomy to refuse the intake of the food. Owing to this right the
patients might willing stop eating and drinking. Again, the health care professional are not
provided with the authority to force any patients to consume food and drink. In relation to this,
Divert et al., (2013) have stated that ageing is a crucial period in relation to the selection of food
and the eating behavior in humans and the repeated exposure to an assortment of the food
products in the form of an important determinants for selecting or refusing a drink. According to
Cerri et al. (2015), the prevalence of malnutrition and sarcopenia has been witnessed among 23
% of the hospitalised patients, 10.3 % of the discharged patients have died within three months
of discharge. Maitre et al. (2014) have confirmed that most of the geriatric patients are picky
eaters and substances like appetite enhancer, changing the flavour of hospital made food can be

2REASEARCH PROPOSAL
helpful in increasing the appetite of the patients. This evidence provides the rationale for
choosing the option of addition of flavours in the food of the geriatric patients.
Formulation of the PICO
The below mentioned PICO has been used for the formulation of the research question.
This framework had been useful for searching the relevant papers from the electronic data bases
for conducting the literature reviews (Hastings & Fisher, 2014).
P/population Older patients in nursing home and/or
community
I/intervention Flavour enhanced food
C/comparison Normal food
O/outcome Improved dietary intake
Table 1- PICO framework for the research plan
Research question: Can flavour enhanced foods improve dietary intake among older adults
residing in hospital and community settings?

3REASEARCH PROPOSAL
Conceptual framework
Dependent variable
 Use of flavors like chicken flavors, fish
flavors, and turkey flavors.
Independent variable
 Increased appetite in geriatric
patients
Instrument used
 Measurement of the body mass index before and after the
interventions
 Questionnaire
 Mean and standard deviation
 SPSS and student t- test for testing the variation
Research method
 Control group (10 patients ) and intervention group (10
patients