Practical guidelines for diet and nutritional care in hospital with follow-up and long-term care

The global population is aging and the proportion of hospitalized geriatric patients is increasing. The nutrition of older individuals has its own specifics, yet the form of hospital food often does not meet their needs. The aim of this retrospective observational work is to document the update of the dietary system of a specific long-term and follow-up care facility, where 97% of geriatric patients are hospitalized. The change in the dietary system, which was guided by the Methodological Recommendations for Ensuring Diet and Nutritional Care, a document issued by the Ministry of Health in 2020, is mapped in the first section of the practical part. The research described in the second section is a comparison of serum albumin levels in two groups of patients, before and after the introduction of dietary changes. The expected assumption that the administration of the updated diet would significantly affect the monitored parameters was not confirmed. The discussion therefore addresses the question of which other factors influence the monitored parameters and which of them should be the subject of further observations. Key words: hospital diet, geriatric patient, nutrition in elderly, malnutrition, prevention