Maintaining proper nutrition and ensuring care home residents are eating well are among the most important aspects of looking after those entrusted to your facility’s care. After all, our bodies need the right types and amounts of fuel to sustain daily life, heal after an injury, operation or trauma and to fight infections and diseases. Like a car, we simply do not work without a recharge or refuel when the tank runs low.
However, what should be a simple routine of choosing and eating foods that will support ands nourish the body turns into a complex, distressing situation when someone is affected by an eating disorder that prevents them from being able to take in the right amount of food and nutrients to be able to thrive. This is especially difficult to deal with in a residential care setting, where meal and snack times must fit into wider routines and there are several people in need of specialist care and emotional support at the same time. In the run-up to Eating Disorders Awareness Week starting on 24 February, read on to find out ways in which Care Vision can support care providers in helping patients and residents who have eating disorders.
What is an eating disorder?
An eating disorder is a mental health condition characterised by an abnormal or irregular eating habit. It can often be brought about by the use of food to cope with difficult feelings or negative emotions. Signs that someone is suffering from an eating disorder can include over or under eating, following extreme diet plans, doing excessive exercise, hiding food, use of laxatives, vomiting, excessive weight loss or gain and physical symptoms such as sensitivity to cold, fatigue and weakness. While the exact cause is unknown, genetics, psychology and biology can all play a role. Treatment can be wide-ranging in its approach and include therapy and counselling, residential support, nutritional counselling and medication. If left untreated, eating disorders can seriously threaten both mental and physical health.
Some examples of eating disorders are anorexia nervosa, which is characterised by a fear of gaining weight and an overwhelming urge to remain thin by controlling the amount of food eaten to an unhealthy extreme. Bulimia nervosa has similar toots, but involves bouts of binge eating followed by taking action to expel the food from the body to avoid weight gain. Another disorder is pica – the strong drive to eat things that do not have nutritional value, such as paper, plastic or cloth. Eating disorders can be accompanied by anxiety disorders, depression and other psychological complications.
How can you help care residents with eating disorders?
Looking after people with eating disorders can require a multi-pronged approach, focusing on their mental health as well as addressing the physical symptoms that disordered eating can create. Using Care Vision to develop a bespoke, person-centred treatment plan can help carers ensure nothing is missed out, and that the treatments and therapies prescribed work together, do not cause problems elsewhere and fit in well with the person’s routine at the care home. It helps a wider team involved in someone’s care to share insights, update notes and pass important pieces of information about the person’s progress between each other confidentially, rapidly and effectively.
Care Vision can also be used to book and keep track of therapy appointments and other external visits, and to make sure there are sufficient staff on rota to support everyone, including those with eating disorders, during mealtimes. The system can keep track of all care records, making it simple for anyone involved in someone’s care to update their records, note food and drink preferences, highlight allergies, input medications and dosages and set up detailed nutrition and hydration plans. Having all of this vital information in one place is also crucial for emergencies and situations where someone may need to be admitted to hospital urgently – all the date needed to inform their care can be shared instantly and updated in real time as the treatment progresses. Finally, the Care Vision carer management software helps user monitor nutrition and hydration carefully so any signs that an eating disorder might be in its early stages can be noted and spotted sooner, increasing the chances of successful treatment before it takes hold more severely.