Nutritional Case Analysis of Hala Bira: Nutrition in Nursing Report

This report presents a nutritional case analysis of Ms. Hala Bira, a 43-year-old resident of a rehabilitation center experiencing significant weight loss and nutritional deficiencies. The assignment explores the patient's situation, highlighting her tendency to skip meals and the lack of monitoring at the center. It emphasizes the need for increased monitoring and care, along with educational sessions to inform Ms. Bira about the importance of diet and nutrition. The report suggests using the "Determine Your Nutritional Health Checklist" to identify barriers to her dietary needs. Intervention strategies include involving Ms. Bira in meal preparation, encouraging her to drink water, and incorporating her into activities to improve her appetite and overall well-being. The report concludes by emphasizing the significance of balanced nutrition for preventing physical ailments and suggests a questionnaire to assess the effectiveness of the interventions.

Running head: NUTRITION IN NURSING
NUTRITIONAL CASE ANALYSIS OF HALA BIRA
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Introduction
Diet and nutrition are very crucial for elders as it enhances the risk of cardiac diseases,
diabetes and other physical and mental ailments (WHO, 2018). In this assignment a case study of
Ms. Hala Bira (43) has been presented, who has lived at the rehabilitation center for more than
30 years, however due to some reasons she has started losing weight tremendously which is
deleterious to her health. This assignment aims to discuss the situation of Ms. Hala Bira and
regarding that will describe the situation, which need to be changed and the nutritional plan that
will help in the improvement of Hala Bira’s condition.
Discussion
While going through the case of Ms. Hala Bira, it was observed that, though she used to
live in the rehabilitation center for 30 years, she was found to be nutritionally deprived from past
three tears and losing weight tremendously. Further the healthcare facilities found that she used
to skip her lunch and dinner, despite of her favorite food items. He used to dump her food, when
no supervisor or carer was around. These actions determined that the rehabilitation center lacked
monitoring and caring facilities. Proper monitoring and guidance is important for the growth and
development of any habit and Hala Bira needs 24 hour guidance because it might possible that
due to aging, she has lost her appetite due to which, she usually had her breakfast but skips het
lunch and dinner (Holyday et al., 2012). Hence, the first thing, that need to be changed was her
monitoring and care facility, so that she is constantly under observation of health authorities.
As awareness of the applied intervention helps to improve the health condition of patient
more than uninformed interventions because the patient also applies his or her energy to recover
faster. Therefore the first health promotion action that will be used as an intervention will be

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learning session, in which, Hala Bira will be taught about importance of diet and nutrition.
Further through the presentation of the learning session and different activities the barriers of
Hala Bira to attain her dietetic requirements can be assessed (White et al., 2012). For example,
the check list she filled regarding the “Determine Your Nutritional Health Checklist" (American
Academy of Family Physicians, 2018). It was important as the healthcare workers in the
rehabilitation center were unable to understand the issues she was facing because Hala Bira used
to be quite and did not talk to anyone. Therefore, teaching plan or informative session with the
patient with some activities that can reveal the barriers which affect the patient’s mental and
physical state to achieve wellbeing is beneficial for such treatment.
Further, a plan should be prepared keeping all the factors of “Determine Your Nutritional
Health Checklist" as removing all those barriers can help Hala Bira to eat as per her diet and
nutritional requirement (Tappenden et al., 2013). While assessing the checklist filled by Hala
Bira, it was seen that she has circled points which states that, she eats alone everyday (1 point),
she is unable to cook or shop (2 points), she has lost more than 10 pounds unwillingly (2 points),
she takes too much medicines (1 point). Furthermore, she accepted that she eats less than 2 meals
per day (3 points), she had to change her diet because of illness (2 points) and is suffering from
tooth and mouth problem (2 points) (American Academy of Family Physicians, 2018). Hence
according to these factors, she was at higher nutritional risk. Therefore, an intervention should be
used for her treatment, because as per the checklist, she is depressed about her changing health
condition that makes her have so many medicines and have her lunch dinner alone (Volkert,
2013). Hence, as intervention, plans to make her happy and involve in conversations or
discussions should be involved. Her care providers should eat with her so that she does not feel
alone and should be provided with tactics that will help her to attain her daily nutritional

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requirements. The carers should always observe her while having food and for encouragement,
should eat with her. Stress-free eating habit will help to balance the dietetic issues of Hala Bira
and she will regain her lost weight (Rist, Miles & Karimi, 2012). Further to involve her in the
cooking procedure, carers should involve her in food making process, it will help to boost her
appetite and she will be able to increase her consumption gradually. Furthermore, for the habit of
drinking water, she will be asked to drink water after having her medicines which will increase
her level of water consumption too (Holyday et al., 2012).
Further to make her busy and feel important in the rehabilitation center, she will be
involved in the sessions such as exercises, gardening, art and craft, which will distract her focus
from her physical and mental ailments and improve her appetite. Finally to understand the
improvement in Hala Bira regarding her nutritional habit, an assessment will be carried out using
a 10 close-ended question based questionnaire related to her current state of food and nutrition.
Depending on the response, the intervention will be modified or similar intervention will be
extended (White et al., 2012).
Conclusion
Diet and nutrition are the reason for a maximum of the physical illness because
imbalanced nutritional habit hampers the balance of human physiology. The World Health
Organization has also stated the fact that diseases such as heart related issues, diabetes and blood
pressure related diseases are the effects of imbalanced micro and macro nutrition within the
body. Hala Bira has several issues such as loneliness, depression due to medical condition and
excessive weight loss and appetite loss that lead her consume less than two meals every day. It
was observed that she used to dump her lunch and dinner while the carers were not present,

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hence the assignment suggested that she should always be observed by carers and the carer
should have his/her dinner with Hala Bira so that her loneliness can be removed. Furthermore,
the assignment presented a plan including, involving her in activities to keep her busy and divert
her negative thinking away and focus on constructive and creative activities. Furthermore, a
teaching plan to involve her in the intervention was also mentioned in the assignment followed
by evaluation of Hala Bira’s understanding regarding importance of diet and nutrition. All these
were aimed to attain success in interventions aimed for Hala Bira.

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References
American Academy of Family Physicians. (2018). American Academy of Family
Physicians. Aging.sc.gov. Retrieved 25 February 2018, from
https://aging.sc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Trainings/Nutrition%20Check
%20list.pdf
Holyday, M., Daniells, S., Bare, M., Caplan, G. A., Petocz, P., & Bolin, T. (2012). Malnutrition
screening and early nutrition intervention in hospitalised patients in acute aged care: a
randomised controlled trial. The journal of nutrition, health & aging, 16(6), 562-568.
Rist, G., Miles, G., & Karimi, L. (2012). The presence of malnutrition in community‐living older
adults receiving home nursing services. Nutrition & Dietetics, 69(1), 46-50.
Tappenden, K. A., Quatrara, B., Parkhurst, M. L., Malone, A. M., Fanjiang, G., & Ziegler, T. R.
(2013). Critical role of nutrition in improving quality of care: an interdisciplinary call to
action to address adult hospital malnutrition. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and
Dietetics, 113(9), 1219-1237.
Volkert, D. (2013). Malnutrition in older adults-urgent need for action: a plea for improving the
nutritional situation of older adults. Gerontology, 59(4), 328-333.
White, J. V., Guenter, P., Jensen, G., Malone, A., & Schofield, M. (2012). Consensus statement
of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics/American Society for Parenteral and Enteral
Nutrition: characteristics recommended for the identification and documentation of adult

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malnutrition (undernutrition). Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 112(5),
730-738.
WHO. (2018). WHO | Nutrition for older persons. Who.int. Retrieved 25 February 2018, from
http://www.who.int/nutrition/topics/ageing/en/index1.html