This research area focuses on identifying the key determinants of food intake and developing effective interventions that improve food intake and quality of life for older adults living in Long Term Care (LTC), retirement homes and other residences.
End of Life Nutrition Care
Residents living in long-term care (LTC) experience eating challenges that often increase in severity as end of life (EOL) approaches. Yet, little is known about this process of decline and the decision-making around therapeutic versus palliative aims of nutrition care in the last months of life in LTC. Jill Morrison's PhD dissertation aims to explore the eating challenges that are common among residents leading up to EOL and the strategies used to address these challenges. Particular attention will be given to the concept of comfort feeding and how this care strategy is defined and applied in relation to palliative EOL care. Various perspectives, including those of direct care partners, regulated nursing staff, dietitians, and family members, will be described and will highlight facilitators and barriers to comfort-focused EOL nutrition care in LTC. Some of the data used for this project is from Babel, an intervention study in three provinces (ON, MB, AB) focused on improving the advanced care planning process for residents are high risk of mortality.
PROMOTE Hydration
Heather Keller is leading multidisciplinary, international team to develop a multicomponent hydration intervention for residential care. An environmental scan, online survey and international expert think tank have been completed to identify components of this intervention. Future work will be to detail the components of the intervention, determine how they can be integrated into usual practice and conduct a pilot study.
CHOICE+ Mealtime Experience
CHOICE+ is an innovative program that focuses on improving the mealtime experience for residents living in retirement communities and long-term care homes through relationship-centred dining practices. The CHOICE+ Program Pilot Study was carried out from January 2018 until August 2019, and our findings will be published soon. Resources from this program are available here. A champion leader training has also been piloted.
DIReCT (Dining in Residential Care Team)
A national team led by Professor Keller is working towards improving the mealtime experience in residential care. The initial work of this team is an online survey to determine how COVID-19 has impacted mealtimes in older adult care settings as well as how relationship-centred occurs at mealtimes. Perspectives of staff, residents and care partners will be explored.
Culturally Inclusive Menu Planning
With Canada’s aging population growing and becoming more culturally diverse, there is a critical need to create inclusive services, including meals in long term care (LTC) homes to meet the needs of a diverse aging population. This project will use qualitative and quantitative methods to identify best practices for developing menus in LTC homes to incorporate culturally appropriate meals and will address gaps in menu planning for culturally diverse residents. This will promote food intake, quality of life and inclusivity of all residents, regardless of their background.
Food-Related Education for Seniors' Health
FRESH (Food-Related Education for Seniors’ Health) is a project focused on creating accessible and user-friendly nutrition tool kits for retirement home residents. The goal of this project is to increase awareness, address knowledge gaps and provide nutrition education to older adults in retirement living.
Nutrition in Disguise
Nutrition in Disguise is all about introducing nutrient-dense foods to popular recipes in long-term care. For instance, adding brown lentils to chocolate brownies will boost the protein and fibre content without changing the traditional taste and texture of this chocolatey treat. Other recipes created to date include mulligatawny soup with chia and flax seeds, spinach quiche, and muffins with wheat germ. Recipes can be found on the Research Institute for Aging. More recipes using plant-based proteins are on under development.