Malnutrition cases in Ireland have increased dramatically as a direct result of the country’s ageing population, according to a new study.
A new study by the Irish Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (Irspen) has noted a 59% increase in the number of patients of all ages with or at significant risk of malnutrition.
Malnutrition relates to the health impacts on a person’s life stemming from an imbalance of nutrients being delivered via their food.
The survey noted more than 220,000 people displaying ‘serious nutritional issues’ due to the effects of illnesses such as cancer, or as a result of a composite of multiple chronic diseases — a common occurence with many older people.
While the highest concentration of people with malnutrition is found in patients newly arrived in hospital, most people suffering from the condition as a result of a disease are still resident in the community.
Roughly one in 20 Irish adults are affected by malnutrition at any given time.
Irspen director Niamh Rice said that identifying patients who are struggling to maintain their nutritional intake is “critically important” given the condition of underlying diseases can worsen rapidly within a body which is subject to undernutrition.
She said that patients with malnutrition typically cost three times as much to care for each year given they are more likely to be hospitalised and have a length of stay 30% longer than the average.
Such patients are also at a higher risk of complications, especially infections, while using up a greater proportion of community healthcare resources, Ms Rice said.
The report recommends that good nutritional status, including the maintenance of weight and the preservation of muscle mass, should become “an integrated part of inpatient hospital care”.
It said that screening for malnutrition and consequent treatments should be expanded out of hospital settings into the home and the community for high-risk groups such as older or frail people, and into all settings for cancer patients.
The study noted further that there is an ongoing shortage of dietitians in Ireland, as well as too few cancer-specialist dietitians. Ms Rice said:
We remain chronically short of dietitians to initiate the right nutrition support at the earliest possible sign that a patient is failing to maintain a good nutritional intake.
She explained meanwhile that the huge spike in cases of malnutrition is primarily driven by demographic changes.
Since 2012 the percentage of Irish people aged older than 65 has increased from 11% to 16%, or 833,000 people, while older people are five times more likely to develop malnutrition than younger adults.
Ms Rice said that while the high degree of malnutrition in older people is mostly attributable to that cohort’s greater susceptibility to serious illness, being older also means that the person in question is less able to withstand the additional stress of inadequate nutrition while ill.
She called for greater awareness that malnutrition worsens the effects of disease.
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