Texture-Modified Diets Need to be Improved in Vietnamese Hospitals

Area of Science:

• Gerontology
• Clinical Nutrition
• Hospital Dietetics

Background:

• Nutritional status is critical for older adults, especially inpatients.
• Texture-Modified Diets (TMD) are used for dysphagia but may impact intake.
• Assessing nutritional status in Vietnamese older adult inpatients is important.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the nutritional status of older adult inpatients on TMD versus regular diets.
• To identify differences in malnutrition prevalence and energy intake between diet groups.
• To evaluate the quality and texture of hospital diets for older adults.

Main Methods:

• Cross-sectional study conducted in three northern Vietnamese hospitals.
• Data collected from 344 older adult inpatients by dietitians in 2021.
• Nutritional status assessed using GLIM criteria; energy intake and meal wastage recorded.

Main Results:

• 104 subjects (30.2%) were prescribed TMD; hospital diets lacked adequate texture development, including pureed options.
• Overall malnutrition prevalence was 28.8% among older adult inpatients.
• The TMD group exhibited a two-fold higher malnutrition prevalence and lower total energy intake compared to the regular diet group, despite similar hospital meal energy provision. Meal wastage was higher in the TMD group.

Conclusions:

• Older adult inpatients on TMD may experience poorer nutritional status than those on regular diets.
• Hospital diet textures and overall quality require significant improvement for the elderly population.
• Further research into optimizing TMD and hospital food services is warranted.