Nutritional Requirements of Individuals with Dementia Essay

Dementia as a clinical syndrome is characterised by global cognitive impairment, which represents a decline from previous level of functioning and is associated with impairment in functional abilities and in many cases behavioural and psychiatric disturbances.

Food can also help with a person’s memory and give them a feeling of belonging. It also helps them to keep interested in foods and drink.

Food is used in different circumstances in life represents a culture, but can also reflect one's personality, lifestyle, and socio-economic

The term ‘dementia’ is used to describe a syndrome associated with an ongoing decline of the brain and its abilities. This includes problems with memory loss, thinking speed, mental agility, language, understanding, and judgment. People with dementia can become apathetic or uninterested in their usual activities, and have problems controlling their emotion. They also fine social situation challenging, lose interest in socialising and aspect of their personality may change. The majority of people who are diagnosed with dementia have either Alzheimer’s disease or vascular dementia, or a combination of the two. (Source 1) As the disease progresses, the person experiencing dementia becomes more vulnerable and their needs often complex; which requires appropriate care and management (Kitwood, 1997).this leads me to the next distinctive feature of patients with dementia.

What is dementia? Dementia a neurologic condition characterized by the following cognitive defects; impaired memory, disturbed intellectual function, and inability to solve a problem (deWit O’Neill 2014). Dementia occurs in different stages in this paper we are going to be discussing late stage dementia, and the end stage. The effect that dementia has on a person’s nutritional status. Why is the dementia patient more at risk for malnutrition? Things we as health care providers can do to improve the person with dementias intake, and preventing malnutrition, and finally how nutrition effects the dementia patient during the final and end stages.

1.3 Outline how other health and emotional conditions may affect the nutritional needs of an individual with dementia

This information is very important for the health and social care profession, as individual tastes have to be taken into account when planning a person’s diet. More and more people are enjoying a diet with herbs and spices. This is partly due to our multicultural society and also because more people are travelling to other countries and tasting different types of food and drink. A person’s diet also needs to be tailored to their health requirements. For example, diabetics and some older people may need to exclude certain foods; likewise, a person’s religious belief may mean that halal meat is a requirement. Asking people about their food likes and dislikes, and what they can and cannot eat, is all part of considering and respecting their diversity.’

Cognitive- People with dementia some times struggles to reconise food and drink, which is sometimes when they do not eat any food or drink but down in front of them or do not like what they see or food thier not used to. This is because of the damage the has be caused in the brain. If that person has a problem with their sight and can not see what their are eating or drinking ensure their have the correct glasses on if their wear

The food we eat and how it impacts our day is a substantial part of being a human being. Food is very effective in a vast majority of ways and can impact a person variously in negative and positive ways. The food we eat is definitely linked to the healthiness and lifestyle that we acquire. In “Escape from the Western Diet”, by Michael Pollan and “Food as Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating” by Mary Maxfield, to the very interesting point of views are sought out, and I am firmly behind one of them. One author believes that the food we eat is an extreme determining factor in how our lives are lived, and the other believes the food we consume has no actual impact on the well being of human lives.

Food is the consequence of different cultures making their own ideas for how to make nutrition into a thing of enjoyment and pleasure rather than for survival. Basic nutrition is only something that humans require in order to survive and live another day. The kind of food that humans create is based on where they live, the vegetation and animals, and is only for basic nutrition and human survival. Foods, otherwise known as meals, are made by humans in which they customize it to their tasting. Humans create especially made meals that appeal to them and the people that they live with. The kinds of meals varies with the location that a human lives, and the farther apart the humans are from each other, the more different their food, along with their culture, will be.

Dementia effects your memory and a person’s ability to achieve a normal everyday task and activities.

Dementia is a progressive loss of brain function affecting memory, thinking, language, judgment, and behavior. When older adults cognitive function declines, many changes impact the way they eat. As they age, cognitive impairment affects older adults physical ability to eat independently and their ability to enjoy food or their ability to eat may be affected by food choices because they become overwhelmed by too many food choices. Dr. Heidi K. White presentation on Nutrition and Dementia, described how Alzheimer’s disease affects malnutrition, ways to improve nutrition for patient with dementia, and nutritional needs for end of life care and the role for tube feeding.

There are diverse cultural beliefs and practices among the world's population that is seen in aspects of dietary preferences. In the United States, there are different communities that compose of Whites, Hispanics, African-Americans and other minority groups. Each of such groups has a type of diet that is different from another. For instance, most African-American children are exposed to fast foods which form their main diet. Such a case may be perceived by other people as unhealthy, therefore they too subscribe to a different type of diet that is passed to them through the generations or as determined by the economic ability of the people (Yon, Malik, Mandin & Midgley, 2017). This is one of the outstanding cultural variations related to food in the United States.

Most people wouldn’t deny that food is vital to everyday life, but perhaps it has more importance than just simply nourishing our bodies. According to Carole M. Counihan, a doctor of anthropology, food is so important that society has constructed rules regarding its consumption. Counihan emphasizes in her 1992 Anthropology Quarterly article, “Food Rules in the United States: Individualism, Control and Hierarchy,” that these rules serve as the “means through which human beings construct reality” (Counihan, 1992, p. 55). Counihan advocates for the importance of studying food rules by explaining that knowledge about how food is viewed in our culture can do three things: improve understanding of other culture’s food rules, allow nutrition

Food brings everyone together no matter what culture you are in. Culture is a way of life shared by a group of people, beliefs, customs, symbols and etc. Many families can spend time with each other by preparing and eating dinner at the table, going out for dinner or just celebrating holidays.