Hello

This is available from ResearchGate:

Steptoe, A., Shankar, A., Demakakos, P., & Wardle, J. (2013). Social isolation, loneliness, and all-cause mortality in older men and women. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(15), 5797-5801.

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/236081883

This paper concludes with a checklist but only mentions the family briefly:

Wells, J. L., & Dumbrell, A. C. (2006). Nutrition and aging: assessment and treatment of compromised nutritional status in frail elderly patients. Clinical interventions in aging, 1(1), 67.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2682454/

Similarly, this paper looks at the nutrition but there is not a lot about the lack of social support:

Hoder K (2014) Unintentional Weight Loss in Older Adults. Am Fam Physician. 2014 May 1;89(9):718-722.

http://www.aafp.org/afp/2014/0501/p718.html#afp20140501p718-b27

I'm not sure whether any of these answer your question - it will be interesting to see what others answer

Very best wishes

Mary 

Article Social isolation, loneliness, and all-cause mortality in old...

Hello

This is available from ResearchGate:

Steptoe, A., Shankar, A., Demakakos, P., & Wardle, J. (2013). Social isolation, loneliness, and all-cause mortality in older men and women. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(15), 5797-5801.

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/236081883

This paper concludes with a checklist but only mentions the family briefly:

Wells, J. L., & Dumbrell, A. C. (2006). Nutrition and aging: assessment and treatment of compromised nutritional status in frail elderly patients. Clinical interventions in aging, 1(1), 67.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2682454/

Similarly, this paper looks at the nutrition but there is not a lot about the lack of social support:

Hoder K (2014) Unintentional Weight Loss in Older Adults. Am Fam Physician. 2014 May 1;89(9):718-722.

http://www.aafp.org/afp/2014/0501/p718.html#afp20140501p718-b27

I'm not sure whether any of these answer your question - it will be interesting to see what others answer

Very best wishes

Mary 

Article Social isolation, loneliness, and all-cause mortality in old...

Thanks for sharing these articles.As every problem has different shades. Our concern mainly about the social determinants which also plays a significant role for a problem like inadequate nutrition in the elderly population.

Social isolation of the elderly is a real issue in terms of nutrition. In the UK there are meals on wheels that deliver meals to the elderly daily. There are frozen food companies that prepare, freeze and deliver meals for the elderly to reheat. However, these solutions do not address the social isolation issue. There are also day centres where older people can go for much of the day and have a cooked meal, which increases social inclusion. Social issues need social enterprises to tackle the problems faced by older people when their families have moved away. 

Higher incidence of diseases in the lederly such as diabetes, kidney disease, cancer etc. would also seriously affect thir nutritional status.

Yes, agreed, hence older people need to take greater care of their nutritional needs. 

Hence the chronic disease problem should also be addressed

INSTEAD  OF COMING IN THE WAY OF CHILDREN, WE NEED TO FORM SELF HELP GROUPS WITHIN A COMMUNITY. ELDERS SHOULD UNITE TOGETHER AND SHARE THEIR PROBLEMS WITH EACH OTHER, LET THEM SOLVE THEIR PROBLEMS  THROUGH SELF SUPPORT STRATEGIES. THIS IS A PHASE OF INTERDEPENDENCE.  INSTEAD OF  DEPENDING ON CHILDREN , WE NEED TO DEPEND ON COMMUNITY.

We need to remember that the Health/nutritional situation among old people and their behaviours are influenced for the Health, behaviours, SES, experiences and the other aspects in the adult Life and not only for their current Health-SES-social network-behaviours. Fysiologically, at certain age som behave  as small Children - forgeting to eat and drink properly. Without a social network their Life and Health/nutritional situation deterioriates. We need to Think on elderly people not only some passive objects - sometimes that make them more vulnerable and disable. Nowadays, there is a large variation among old people, some still spring the Marathon at their 90 years.

For me can be an old person those over 80 years but for some them (80 years old) and old person is someone over 90 years.

Better to combine: physical exercise, nutrition, social network, Community involvement (meaning with Life).

It is all very well depending on community IF the community is there and willing to share responsibility. A problem today is that few people think outside their own little box or they too have family/work commitments. Agreed many older people are highly able, but it is when ability is lost due to infirmity or disability that people need support to ensure social inclusion and good nutrition.

There are so many reasons nutrition is poor in some older adults, so a universal approach won't benefit all. You need to figure out why an individual is not eating well, and address that need.  Some possible reasons include:

-Lack of money to purchase nutritious food

-Lack of ability to get to a market/store to obtain healthy food (it may take a long bus trip, for example, or a long walk that they can't do)

-Poor dentition, either having problems with their own teeth or poorly fitting dentures (if they lose weight, their dentures may not fit anymore)

-Difficulty preparing food, due to physical mobility, dexterity, vision, cognition, functional activity tolerance (endurance), location of cookware and dishes requiring bending or reaching they can't do, not knowing how (e.g.: a newly widowed man whose wife always prepared the meals), and so forth

-Reduced sense of taste and smell, so food is just not appetizing

-Lack of appetite, which may be due to medication

-Nausea, which may be due to medication

-A lack of knowledge about what nutritious food is (you'll be amazed if you ask your patients/clients/participants)

-Cognitive impairment, where they forget to eat, or don't realize they need to eat

The list goes on.  For some, tapping them into help to get groceries or prepared meals may be sufficient, for others you may need to address food texture to eat without teeth, or make the food more visually appealing or more strongly flavored than you would usually, or teach energy conservation techniques and re-arrange the kitchen, or just offer a nutrition class.  But any one solution won't work for everyone.

Thank  you very much  for all  of you on  this comprehensive responses

The question on addressing the nutritional problems of the elderly requires systematic and holistic approach;

1. Baseline survey / Situation analysis aimed at enumeration and nutritional assessment of the given elderly population

2. Prioritization of such nutritional problems as discovered.

3. Setting nutritional objectives for the elderly

4. Specification of technical nutritional interventions for the elderly.

5. Specification of nutritional intervention strategies for the elderly.

6. Identification of nutritional intervention constraints and strategies to circumvent them

7. Detailed nutritional programming and resource allocation.

8. Implementation of comprehensive nutritional program for the elderly.

9. Close monitoring and evaluation of the nutritional intervention programs.

10. Feedback for continued improvement.

Each of the above outlines is a huge topic

The United States has largely ignored the oral health needs of the elderly. If we continue to ignore loss of teeth and the relationship of this to nutrition, we will fail to improve nutritional status. ORAL HEALTH needs of the Medicare population must be addressed, But we need to start sooner and address oral health needs of the poor and underserved from birth to senescence.   

The elderly population needs to be educated on the physiological changes in aging. Their lifestyle and eating habits need to be changed gradually to suit the physiological changes. They need to eat more often since they are unable to take in much due to feeling of fullness easily. They need to be educated on the sources of nutrition from various food types to meet their specific nutritional needs and changes in their taste, smell and sight senses.

In addition, the elderly needs motivation, attention and love from their next of kin and the people around them to keep them going.

Health, and nutritional status of elderly people is an issue that is usually forgotten especially in LMIC. Recently, I conducted a survey on the health status of elderly people in a city known as Bahir Dar, northwest Ethiopia. The finding of the survey was presented, available in 20th annual conference of EPHA (Ethiopian public health association). Most of them were poor, and not covered with safety net. They suffered from age related impairments, vision, hearing, physical and mental. Moreover, more than 50% of diabetic, and hypertensive patients did not know that they had, and those who knew did not adhere to the treatment regimens because they did not have the money to buy the medication, they forget or they did not exactly understand how the medication should be taken or the did not know the complications. The recommendation was the following: They need to be covered with safety net, and special mechanism should be devised depending on the context to take care of them. 

The nature of state and distribution of power are important aspects needed to b included in the study of elderly and the issues related to elderly. The over-arching generalization of indicators and measures of nutrition in my opinion has limited bearing on actual nutritional status. It would be far more important to incorporate local ecologies, available plants, herbs and the nature of ownership on these would make study of nutrition an more robust. Sometime, we miss the basic conception in order to select suitable measure that can be quantified.   

Thanks to all friends for sharing their views regarding this important issue especially in developing countries, where a large group of elderly population is from unorganized sectors, they have to depend upon others for their nutritional requirement.Most of the time the diet which is prepared in the family is of poor quality and also not suitable for the aged persons for this population. This can be due to lack of awareness regarding the type of diet which is required. Best solution I think is the involvement of the community.It  is important for pooling of resources & provide the balanced diet from the common kitchen.

hello Mohan - i'll simply say that diet for elderly persons should start early, that is considering if those elderly people have teeth so they can chew, of which food they like and dislike so nourishment is agreeable to them so they will have pleasure in eating. also watch for bone (calcium) loss, as we grow older our bone density decreases, which can lead to more readily fractures, and uneasiness in walking meaning less mobility.

be well.

Hi Mohan. Please be specific of the nutritional problem which needs to be addressed. Having specified the nutritional problem, objectives will be set accordingly. Community engagement programs where they will spend time together knitting, jogging and eating balanced diet suitable for them might assist.

How we can address the problems of nutrition in the elderly population? - ResearchGate. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_we_can_address_the_problems_of_nutrition_in_the_elderly_population [accessed Oct 26, 2015].

Thanks Yolisa Majija · for valuable link