This document discusses person-centered dining in long-term care facilities. It emphasizes treating residents with dignity and respect by focusing on their individual preferences, histories, and purpose. Key aspects of person-centered dining include food choices, presentation, flexible meal times, and restaurant-style service. Dining should make residents feel at home rather than institutional. Practices like serving food on plates instead of trays and staff sitting with residents while assisting with meals promote independence and dignity over tasks and schedules. The goal is for residents to have control and enjoyment through the dining experience.

1. “Food is the heart of home”
Person-Centered Dining

2. Person-Centered Care
• Places the resident at the center of the care
process instead of placing tasks, duties, schedules
and regimens before the resident
• Focuses on the preferences and values of the
resident and places great emphasis on individual
needs, tastes, and lifestyles
• Residents are treated like adults who have rich
histories and have purpose in life

3. Person-Centered Care
• Staff tries to see the world through eyes of
residents and in doing so, take on different
perspectives in how care is delivered, in social
events and activities, and in the dining experience
• This form of care is about resident choices and
preference concerning everything, including food

4. The Importance of Food
• Food nourishes and heals the body, and is a
powerful symbol of nurturing, love, and
celebration
• Food means many things to many people, but a
common image that comes to mind regarding
food is “home”

5. Person-Centered Dining
• Key concepts include:
Food preferences and choices
Presentation of food
How food is served
Flexible meal times
Liberalized diet

6. Restaurant Style Dining
• Dining room should take on the feel of service and
relaxation that people derive from being in a
restaurant
• This style of dining promotes independence,
flexibility, and control over what the resident
wants.
• Simple changes in dining style adds variety to
their day.
• Gestures may seem simple but are crucial to
resident satisfaction.

7. How Tables Should Not Look

8. How Tables Should Look

9. Service During Meals
• Pleasant and respectful service
• Offer choice to every resident/Honor resident’s
food preferences
• Serve residents their food at same tables at the
same time
• Liquids thickened (if needed) at point of service.
• Keep noise levels to a minimum.
• Sit residents with appropriate table mates as able.

10. Dignity
• “The facility must promote care for residents in a manner
and in an environment that maintains or enhances each
resident’s dignity and respect in full recognition of his or
her individuality.”
• Just because someone is elderly or needs help does not
mean they have given up on enjoying life.
• No matter what our needs are, or how our abilities have
diminished, we all want to live with dignity and have
control over our lives, even if our health necessitates
limitations

11. Dignity: Practices to Eliminate
• Serving food on trays to residents
• Staff standing while assisting residents to eat
• Staff conversing only with each other rather than with
residents
• Staff providing residents with bibs (also known as
clothing protectors) except per resident choice

12. Dignity: Practices to Eliminate
• Day-to-day use of plastic cutlery and
paper/plastic dishware
• Staff not offering bathroom assistance during
meals
• Avoiding use of labels for residents such as
“feeders;”

13. Dignity: Practices to Uphold
• Food should be removed from trays and presented to
residents on plates, as they would be in our homes
• Staff giving attention, encouragement and praise to
residents during meals
• Offering cloth napkins (instead of bibs) for residents
• Staff providing any needed bathroom assistance during
meals

14. How Food is Served

15. Inappropriate Feeding Practices
Food should not be served to residents that require
assistance during meal times by staff while standing.
Staff standing while assisting residents to eat is:
• Earmarked as
undignified, as it makes
residents feel inferior,
not respected
• Against proper safety
regulations, as it
presents a choking
hazard for residents

16. Proper Feeding Practices
Sitting is the proper way for
staff to assist residents to eat; it
allows the residents to feel
equal. Staff should give
residents full attention and
converse with them to create
the sense of family meal time.
Staff sitting level with residents
also decreases the risk for
choking.

17. Questions????????