Dear CREATOR friends,
I'm sorry for our late response here on the
web log but we´re in the middle of our summer vacations. Please read
and consider our idea for the joint project. As you will see, and some
of you might recall, we have a somewhat new suggestion for our part of
the project.
After our initial meeting and brainstorming in Metz
we took our ideas from that meeting with us back to Sweden and discussed
with our local partners. After a first, brief overview of the subject
(food for elderly) we got aware of that there is a large amount of
different local projects performed in Sweden but often/usually without
coordination between projects, both with regard to methods used and
achieved results. Dissemination of the results are often non-existent
and rarely affects the normal routines within elder care. We don’t know
the situation in other countries but believe the situation might be the
same in your regions.
We therefore think that there is a
need for a survey to elucidate what has been done already; by whom,
methods used and results achieved with regard to all different aspects
of eating among elderly. This will enable us to clearly see
possibilities to improve nutritional status and health of elderly
through increased accessibility and palatability of foods and meals
through manipulation of flavour and texture of food, packaging (this is
what we were discussing in Metz) and the social environment during meals
and also to see where knowledge is lacking.
For efficient
use of resources it is necessary to clarify what is already done and
what remains to be studied. This may create job opportunities
within the food and packaging industries specializing in food and food
delivery to the elderly population, with regard to technologies within
social media, etc. Improvement in the area will also have an enormous
positive health impact on the aging European population.
We have
discussed this idea with our local coordinators (Länsstyrelsen
Västerbotten) and they think it is an good idea, in line with the
CREATOR idea of transferring of knowledge between our regions. But they
also pinpointed that it is important for us to show how this might and
can promote local economical development within our different
regions.
Feel free to comment on our idea!
Regards,
Åse
Tieva, PhD
Department of Food and Nutrition, Umeå University
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