Nutrition and Hydration

Course overview

This Nutrition and Hydration course will provide participants with a review of the basic safety considerations and nutritional guidelines necessary to safely assist residents and elderly clients in eating, drinking and maintaining optimal nutritional status. This comprehensive review can be utilized for personnel throughout all healthcare settings, as the safety considerations for nutrition and hydration do not change according to level of acuity. Within this course, the participant will review the basics of nutrition and hydration, common nutritional problems of the elderly or ill, different ways that residents and clients can receive nutrition and hydration, aspiration precautions, food and beverage modification to prevent aspiration or choking, factors that influence food preferences, special diets, different types of adaptive equipment used for meals, making dining enjoyable for residents and clients, appropriately and safely feeding a resident or client, assisting residents and clients with disabilities during meal times, accurately measuring meal intake, improving communication to promote safety during meal times, steps to take in the event that a resident or client is observed to be choking, and completing incident reporting in a timely and thorough manner.