Course Overview

This course is designed to equip learners with an understanding of the unique nutritional needs of older people. It will explore how to effectively link nutritional requirements to food and fluid provision, ensuring optimal health and well-being and address the most common nutritional challenges faced by older people. It will offer actionable strategies to overcome these barriers, empowering learners to make a meaningful impact on the lives of older people.

Learning Outcomes

This is especially important now, as the sector transitions to the Strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards. In particular, Standard 6 - Food and Nutrition – which sets clear expectations to ensure older people receive nutritious, appealing and safe food and drink, along with meaningful dining experiences. For the workforce, this means every person involved in meals, fluids, texture-modified diets, swallowing support, or dining environments, needs up-to-date knowledge, confidence and capability embedded in everyday practice.

In short, engaging with these courses helps organisations:

• Protect older people from malnutrition, dehydration and their serious consequences
• Deliver person-centred care that honours dignity and choice
• Meet the strengthened regulatory requirements under Standard 6, and
• Build a confident, skilled workforce ready to partner with older people in meaningful ways around food, drink and dining.

This course provides an understanding of:

• the importance of nutrition and hydration for older people
• the consequences of inadequate nutrition and hydration
• why older people are at risk of malnutrition and dehydration, and
• how to use a person-centred approach to address the nutritional and hydration needs of older people.

Target Audience

As people age, a range of physiological, health and social factors make them significantly more vulnerable to malnutrition and dehydration. For example:

• According to Dietitians Australia , around 50% of older Australians in aged care and the community are either malnourished or at risk.
• A study by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission  found 68% of residential aged care residents were malnourished or at risk.
• Dehydration is also widespread: meeting daily fluid targets of around 1.5 L is often compromised causing diminished thirst, swallowing disorders, medication effects and other age-related changes.

The consequences of poor nutrition and hydration are serious: increased falls and fractures, infections, slower recovery, loss of muscle and bone mass, frailty, reduced function - and even increased mortality.

So, ensuring older people have adequate nutrition and hydration is not a “nice to have.” It is fundamental to dignity, independence, quality of life and health outcomes.

Kineo Courses offer three courses on this topic:

• Introduction to Nutrition and Hydration for Older People
• Nutrition, Dysphagia, and Texture-Modified Diets for Older People
• Nutrition, Hydration, and the Dining Experience for Older People

These courses equip aged-care workers with practical, evidence-aligned skills to identify and manage malnutrition and dehydration, apply the IDDSI framework safely, and deliver person-centred nutrition and hydration that supports dignity and better outcomes.