La nutrition dans le parcours de soins des personnes âgées

Among the structured care plans published by the High Authority of Health, the course dedicated specifically to the elderly aims at preventing the loss of autonomy. The approach promotes an action upstream to the risk of loss of autonomy, including the prevention of malnutrition. The personalized care plan concerns the elderly affected by one or several chronic diseases and/or frail. Frailty involves most of the time weight loss and a decrease of muscular function. “Key points and solutions” deal with the identification of and multimodal intervention in fragility syndrome and with the prevention of the avoidable hospital readmissions. The strategies of action include nutritional care and physical activity. Besides, the elderly may be concerned by several of the care plans developed for the chronic diseases. Some of these disease lead at any age to a risk of malnutrition (renal disease, Parkinson's disease, chronic bronchitis, cancer…). Others are more often associated with obesity in adults (diabetes, coronary disease, cardiac insufficiency…), but may be associated with malnutrition in the elderly. The specificities of the nutritional evaluation in the elderly and the efficacy of nutritional care would maybe deserve to appear more clearly in the courses of care concerning chronic diseases, which are increasingly prevalent in aging people; the objective is to maintain at best and as long as possible the quality of life for the aging people.