Nutrition Interventions in Aged Care: The Need and Challenges in the Aged Care Context

Malnutrition and frailty are preventable and reversible. However, a significant proportion of aged care residents live with malnutrition and frailty which have associated complications such as increased falls, hospitalizations, infections, and decreased quality of life. Nutrition and dietary interventions can prevent these issues, however, there a few interventions conducted in this setting and no consensus on the most utilized interventions to improve health outcomes. In a crude literature search, we identified 65 nutrition-related randomized controlled trials worldwide in the aged care setting from 2000 to 2024. Most interventions were conducted in Europe and were oral nutrition supplementation or dietary supplements and/or food fortification. With few published studies, progressing nutrition interventions in aged care may be assisted by the mapping and identification of the key barriers and challenges related to engagement and collaboration with stakeholders and participants and the logistics of the aged care environment including staffing workload and kitchen capacity. Nutrition researchers should consider using process evaluations and qualitative research to map barriers and enablers to implementation in hopes to improve future research.