Hospital Associated Decline: Eat, Walk, Engage

21 May 2019

Workshop focused on pragmatic interventions to prevent hospital associated decline.

Our recent successful workshop focused on pragmatic interventions to prevent hospital associated decline. The workshop show cased the innovative Eat, Walk, Engage intervention developed and tested by Professor Mudge and her team in Brisbane Australia. The intervention uses a facilitation model to enable wards to consistently deliver improved nutrition, mobilisation and cognitive stimulation to older patients in acute care settings. The intervention has demonstrated a 40% reduction in delirium incidents and a trend toward older people returning to their own home. Fiona Byrne provided us with an overview of the implications of the updated HSE Nutrition and Hydration guidelines, while Professor Romero- Otruno and Peter Hartley outlined their research on mechanisms and relative contributions of risk factors to hospital associated functional decline.