What actions to increase fluid intake within care home residents work?
When trying to make a care home fluid friendly, it is important actions are evidence-based.
The following actions are supported by research in this area:
The following actions are supported by research in this area:
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Limitations in the Evidence
A significant limitation is the lack of reliable methods of dehydration identification. This not only poses a significant problem in practice, but also within research; it is difficult to determine successful prevention interventions and the lack of consistent measurements is detrimental to the conduction of large systematic reviews [11] .
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Individuals with dementia are a particular group of concern for dehydration. The lack of good quality research in this group is therefore disappointing. A systematic review by Abdelhamid et al. (2016) found 43 controlled interventions to increase food and drink intake in people with dementia, but none were identified as at low risk of bias. This highlights the need for increased quality research in the area of hydration and dementia.
Another limitation is that dehydration prevention often takes a clinical approach and there is therefore a lack of consistent evidence looking at hydration promotion with a public health, place-based approach. This emphasises the importance of evaluating settings-approaches as advocated on this website.
Another limitation is that dehydration prevention often takes a clinical approach and there is therefore a lack of consistent evidence looking at hydration promotion with a public health, place-based approach. This emphasises the importance of evaluating settings-approaches as advocated on this website.