Environmental issues related to visibility and consumption of food in an Alzheimer's disease unit

Abstract

The importance of food and food choices as a physical, social, and psychological component of well-being is well documented. However these issues have not been systematically examined with the cognitively disabled. This study explores how presentation of food and snacks can encourage AD patients in the early and middle stages of the disease to independently satisfy hunger and thirst. Neither visible nor accessible refrigerators greatly increased the incidences of resident independence in snacking. Results suggest that residents' inability to select snacks independently may be inadvertently hampered by caregivers' perceptions of excess disability.