Case Study: Co-creating NANA (Novel Assessment of Nutrition and Ageing) with Older Adults Living at Home

Older people face a high risk of nutrient deficiencies and malnutrition, which increases risk of sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass and strength) and other health-related problems. Avoiding late-life malnutrition is dependent on a number of factors including physical, mental, and cognitive health. Monitoring all of these factors and the interactions between them is challenging, especially for people living at home. Dietary intake, for example, has traditionally used pen and paper recall and recording of what people eat (e.g., food log, food diary), which relies heavily on memory. In addition, gold standard measures of cognition are designed for one-off assessment, administered by a trained clinician or researcher. Developing an accessible tool that older people can use at home on a daily basis to monitor what they eat and drink, their mood, cognition, and physical activity could reassure them how they are doing and provide early detection of emerging problems.