This research area focuses on understanding what leads to poor nutrition, promoting food intake, and improving the management of nutrition behaviours in older adults living in the community through screening and nutrition care processes. We also conduct research with hospitals to improve and implement sustainable nutrition care practices. Below are our current projects:
Seniors in the Community: Risk Evaluation for Eating and Nutrition Validation Study
Seniors in the Community: Risk Evaluation for Eating and Nutrition (SCREEN) is an easily administered nutrition screening tool for community-dwelling older adults (55 years or older). The tool can be completed independently by older adults or administered by a trained interviewer in-person or over the phone. SCREEN is available in English and French, and the questions were updated to be consistent with the 2019 Canada's Food Guide. The SCREEN tool, training for SCREEN administrators, guidance documents, and healthy eating factsheets for older adults can be downloaded from the SCREEN website. The SCREEN Validation Study is currently underway to determine the validity and reliability of SCREEN for older adults living with cognitive impairment, their care partners, and persons living in retirement residences.
Understanding Change in Nutrition Risk and its Impact on Health using the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging
The Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging is the largest prospective cohort study on aging in Canada. Using data from the baseline and first 3-year follow-up, we are investigating what predicts a change in nutrition risk status over this time, and how nutrition risk is associated with healthcare service use, functional measures and cognition among community-living older adults.
Advancing Malnutrition Care
Advancing Malnutrition Care (AMC) is an innovative program created by the Canadian Malnutrition Task Force that is aimed at mentoring hospital champions across Canada to implement and sustain best practices from the Integrated Nutrition Pathway for Acute Care (INPAC). AMC will assist with the development and training of Mentors andHospital Champions, to adopt best nutrition care practices to improve the prevention, detection, and treatment of malnutrition.
Head Down Bed Rest Study
The Head Down Bed Rest study is a multi-institution effort to understand the health impact of inactivity for the benefit of older adults. We are aiming to understand how satiety changes throughout bed rest and what factors mitigate or exacerbate the implications of bed rest using data from the pre- and post-meal visual analogue scale satiety questionnaires.
Frailty & Nutrition Risk Screening
This research is investigating whether the current SCREEN-14 tool can identify frailty in older adults within the community. This work is being done through a consensus-based method using the expert opinion of dietitians. Building further onto this work, using the Nutri-eSCREEN database, psychometric testing will be conducted to determine nutrition risk triggers using age as an identifier.
Knowledge translation and dissemination is a key aspect of our work
- The evidence- and consenus-based Nutrition Care Pathways were created in collaboration with the Canadian Malnutrition Task Force to support nutritional care for patients after discharge from hospital, and community-living older adults.
- The Older Adult Nutrition Screening website houses the Seniors in the Community: Risk Evaluation for Eating and Nutrition (SCREEN) tools and supporting training documents. You can also find healthy eating factsheets for older adults that cover a variety of nutrition topics.