The Nutritionist's Educational Intervention on the Protein Intake in Hospitalized Elderly People

Does the Nutritionist's Educational Intervention Influence Protein Intake in Hospitalized Elderly People?

The food intake is often compromised in the elderly, and during hospitalization, dietary restrictions may be imposed, making them more susceptible to the risk of malnutrition and sarcopenia. It is essential to make an early identification of the elderly with low intake and involve them in their self-care. The aims will be assess the influence of the nutritionist's educational action to increase protein intake in elderly patients, to analyze the knowledge on its importance in the prevention of sarcopenia and to identify the prevalence of nutritional risk. This is a field, prospective, correlational, comparative and randomized study. The elderly patients will be randomized into a Control Group and Intervention Group.

The Control Group will follow the flow of nutritional assessment and monitoring while the Intervention Group will receive daily visits to monitor food intake, leaflet and educational video on the importance of protein and its source foods. In both groups, a questionnaire on knowledge of protein sources and its importance will be applied, and we will calculated the 24-hour recall of a regular day and for three days of hospitalization. Patients will be assessment by Mini Nutritional Assessment-Short Form and SARC-F and will be the measurements of calf circumference and hand grip strength.

Inclusion Criteria:

• elderly patients aged 60 years or older,
• with a prescription of oral feeding, exclusively,
• minimum period of three days.

Exclusion Criteria:

• palliative care,
• treatment for chronic renal failure,
• patients with neurological deficit and dysphagia,
• readmissions during the study,
• receiving enteral and/or parenteral nutritional therapy,
• patients in isolation.