蜜桃AV research to identify and reduce malnutrition in older people has been featured as part of a national campaign.
Professor Jane Murphy, Professor of Nutrition at 蜜桃AV, has worked in partnership with health and care providers to develop and test new ways to identify people at risk of malnutrition and take effective action.
She has been named as one of the nation鈥檚 Lifesavers, the top 100 individuals or groups based in universities whose work is saving lives and making a life-changing difference to our health and wellbeing.
They have been named as part of Universities UK鈥檚 campaign, which brings to life the impact of universities on everyday lives.
Professor Murphy said: 鈥淲e need to have some smarter solutions to understand and tackle the problem of malnutrition appropriately to reduce the cost burden on our health and social care services and ensure that older people are living the best quality of life that they can for as long as possible.
鈥淥ur research has looked at the factors that help or hinder the implementation of new procedures for detecting malnutrition across the community by health and social care staff.
鈥淭hrough this work, we鈥檝e developed new training materials and resources that are straightforward, simple and easy to use.鈥�
Around 1.3 million older people in the UK are living with malnutrition or are at risk of being malnourished.
93 per cent of malnutrition occurs in the community, and there could be a range of causes including long-term health conditions or social factors, such as grief or social isolation, which lead to loss of appetite.
Professor Murphy鈥檚 work has created new resources to improve awareness and training around malnutrition in the community, including workbooks, online toolkits and a nutrition wheel to guide people through having conversations around eating well.
The programme has so far trained over 1,074 people across a range of roles, including professionals, volunteers and carers.
Among those using Professor Murphy鈥檚 resources is Sally Nevitt, Older People鈥檚 Worker at Immanuel Church in Southbourne.
She said: 鈥淲e鈥檝e got a lot of older people who live on their own and don鈥檛 get to eat meals with company.
鈥淲e鈥檝e been doing some work with the nutrition wheel 鈥� we helped to pilot that and it鈥檚 really good because the questions are very targeted and there are solutions for the questions so it鈥檚 very easy to work through and explain it to the people who we are working with.
鈥淚 think it鈥檚 important to know the scientific information behind what we are telling people because then we鈥檝e got far more authority to share that information.鈥澛犅�
Professor Murphy has also worked with regional organisations including the Wessex Academic Health and Science Network and Southern Health to develop training resources to help health and care professionals diagnose and treat malnutrition in the community.
Julia Lake, Deputy Director of Nursing for Southern Health, said: 鈥淲orking with 蜜桃AV has been absolutely fantastic. Having that blend of academic, evidence-based practice and the clinical expertise, they鈥檝e really supported us to put in place something that鈥檚 practical, that can be used in practice and that can really make a difference to our patients.鈥� 聽
The MadeAtUni campaign aims to give the public an insight into some of the work and research taking place at universities across the UK and celebrates those who make it happen.
Professor Dame Janet Beer, President of Universities UK, said: 鈥淓very day up and down the country, universities are also working on innovations to transform and save lives. Research taking place in universities is finding solutions to so many of the health and wellbeing issues we care about and the causes that matter.
鈥淭his campaign is a chance to bring to life the wonderful and often unexpected work聽going on every day in our universities and to celebrate some of the people working to聽make a life-changing difference to the nation.鈥�
Find聽out more about Professor Murphy's work and research into nutrition by listening to the podcast of her inaugural lecture:聽
