Abstract
BackgroundThe focus of care has shifted from institutional care to home care. Family caregivers provide the majority of home care that allows an opportunity for their care recipients to live at home and avoid costly institutional care. The aim of this study is to describe the nutritional status, oral health, and quality of life of family caregivers over the age of 65 and their care recipients, and to evaluate the impact of individually tailored diet and oral health advice to their nutritional status and oral health.Methods/designAltogether, 250 family caregivers aged 65 or over, and their care recipients are studied in this prospective randomized population-based multidisciplinary 6-month intervention study. Participants are randomly allocated to the intervention groups or the control group. Data collection is performed at three time-points: at baseline and 6 months and after a 6-month follow-up at 12 months. Caregivers’ and their care recipients’ nutritional and oral health status as a primary outcome, and functional ability, cognitive status, quality of life, depression symptoms, sense of coherence, morbidity, and medication of family caregivers as secondary outcomes will be measured using validated self-administered questionnaires and clinical examinations.DiscussionTo our knowledge, this is the first experiment to determine whether caregivers and their care recipients benefit from individual nutritional intervention and oral health intervention in terms of nutrition status, oral health status, and quality of life.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT04003493. Registered on June 28, 2019
Highlights
The focus of care has shifted from institutional care to home care
To our knowledge, this is the first experiment to determine whether caregivers and their care recipients benefit from individual nutritional intervention and oral health intervention in terms of nutrition status, oral health status, and quality of life
Caring for older people is considered the most economically and humanly sustainable alternative older people care as the number of older people increases, and social services are reduced
Summary
The focus of care has shifted from institutional care to home care. Family caregivers provide the majority of home care that allows an opportunity for their care recipients to live at home and avoid costly institutional care. If the nutrition and oral health statuses of family caregivers are not good, older people’s functional ability and general health can decline. The nationwide goal of shifting the focus of services to outpatient care will not succeed To achieve this goal, research is needed; for example, how to care for and improve oral health and nutrition for FCs and how these affect their wellbeing, performance, and quality of life. At 6 months and 12 months, trained nurse collects information about socioeconomic factors, living arrangements, general health status and healthrelated behavior, functional ability, cognitive status, quality of life, depression symptoms, sense of coherence, morbidity, and medication.
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