Initiatives carried out by Comprehensive Community Support Centers to improve the nutritional state of older people in the community, and future challenges

Abstract

  Malnutrition in older people increases the risk of frailty and long term care need, and is also an important factor contributing to institutionalization. However, the types of support given to older people in the community who need to improve their nutritional state is not clear. In the present study, self-reported postal questionnaires were sent to all 359 Comprehensive Community Support Centers in Tokyo as of April 1, 2010 to examine current efforts being carried out regarding nutritional assessments of older people in the community. The questionnaires consisted of items regarding the assessment of older people with poor nutrition and the support given to them. Analysis was conducted on 155 responses (43.2%). The results indicated that collaboration with welfare commissioners, older person’s neighbors, and other community resources was important to identify older people with malnutrition. Comprehensive Support Centers assessing malnutrition based on observed weight loss and results from medical test (Group B) were more likely to evaluate their quality of work as higher than Centers making assessments based on observed weight loss only (Group A). In addition, Group B tended to use more medical and long-term care services for the improvement of malnutrition than Group A. From these results, we stress the importance of networking and multidisciplinary collaboration between the community and medical institutions for the improvement of nutritional status among elderly people in the community.