How can mealtime cultures and environments be a barrier to meeting nutritional needs of a person with dementia?

Answer 1

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Mealtime cultures such as having strict meal times and meal sizes, certain number of courses and in certain orders such as starter, main, dessert etc may not adhere to the needs of a person with dementia. Their tastes may have changed and may not wish to eat the meals set out for them in a particular 'traditional order'. They may not wish to eat at the same time as everybody else or may wish to eat small amounts more often. By trying to stick to normal meal time cultures, this can be a barrier to the nutritional needs of the individual. The care they recieve should be person centred and to fit in with what the individual needs, this should also be true with the meals the person recieves.

Environmental factors such as being around lots of other diners, loud noises, music or bustling restaurants etc are not ideal for a dementia patient as they can become easily distacted and overwhelmed by too much information being processed at once. This can be a barrier to them being able to focus on their food.

Answer 2

describe how mealtime enviroments and food presentation can be designed to help an individual to eat and drinl