The document summarizes a nutritional advisor service for the elderly. It discusses how the aging process can impact nutrition due to physiological, pathological, sociological, and psychological changes. It then describes the OASIS nutritional advisor which provides [1] customized diets and menus, [2] motivation and reminders, and [3] cooking and shopping assistance to help the elderly manage their nutrition more independently. The service is tested with elderly users and refined based on their feedback to better meet their needs.

1. PROMOTING NUTRITION FOR
THE ELDERLY: NUTRITIONAL ADVISOR
Héctor Galan Marti
ITACA - TSB

2. AGING PROCESS
Psychological,  Quality of Life
physiological, social  Independency
and pathological  Health Status
changes Public Health
Costs

3. Physiologic Pathologic Sociologic Psychologic
Decreased taste Dentition Ability to shop for Depression
foods
Decreased smell Dysphagia, swallowing Ability to prepare food Anxiety
problems
Dysregulation of Diseases (cancer, CHF, Financial Status, low Loneliness
satiation COPD, ESRD, thyroid) socioeconomic
Delayed gastric Medications (diuretic, Impaired activities of Emotionally stressful
emptying antihypertensive, daily living skills life events
dopamine, agonist,
antidepressant, antibiotic,
antihistamine)
Decreased acid Alcoholism Lack of interactions Grief
gastric with others at meal
times
Decreased lean body Dementia Dysphoria
mass

4. “I have so many pills to
“I prefer eating vegetables “I don’t feel like eating. I don’t take… I always forget
and fish, I do not like meat.” have appetite..” them!”
CUSTOMISED DIET “Swallowing it’s getting MOTIVATION &
& MENUS difficult.” REMINDERS
“I always eat the same for dinner: a
sandwich..” “I always leave my
“This year I found out I have shopping list at home!”
diabetes. I never know what to eat.”
NUTRITIONAL “I never had to cook, so COOKING & SHOPPING
LEARNING now I do not know how…” ASSISTANT
“Carbohydr what? I don’t “I have difficulties when
understand” walking, so going shopping
it’s getting harder.”

5. High level of Independence from the physical location
personalization
CUSTOMISED DIET MOTIVATION &
& MENUS REMINDERS
NUTRITIONAL COOKING & SHOPPING
LEARNING NUTRITIONAL ADVISOR SERVICE ASSISTANT
Efficient management Dynamic adaptation to user’s changing
conditions

6. OASIS NUTRITIONAL ADVISOR MAIN FEATURES
WHAT Application for the kitchen that helps older people in their daily
nutritional needs.
Application for the nutritionists that manages the elderly
nutrition.
HOW Creating and providing direct at home user-specific nutritional
menus and advises, while helping them with tools for cooking
and shopping.
WHERE Touch PC placed in the kitchen and a mobile device for
outdoors. Nutritional content is remotelly managed by
nutritionists.

7. Weekly menus According to the user’s nutritional profile: likes &
dislikes, food alergies and health status.
Nutritional tips Depending on the user’s personal situation and needs,
such as ‘Remember to take your pills after eating’.
Shopping lists Created on the basis of the suggested weely menu: the
list can be printed or sent to the mobile phone
Easy recipes With nutritional values and instructions for cooking
the meals.
Interoperability Enhanced experienced by using external services.

8. What is OASIS? Two main objectives:
• 7th FP European project that pursuits the autonomy of the elderly by
creating applications that assist them in daily life processes: ie: nutritional
advisor service, health monitoring & activity coach.
• Focused on developing a platform that allows the interoperability and
content sharing between systems, so a certain service can be enriched by
functionalities offered by other applications.
Daily Life Applications
- In OASIS, the Nutritional Advisor
Nutrition
Activity
service, based on PERSONA’s NA, is
Health
games
Brain
interconnected with other services,
physical activity management and health
aspects to provide a better management
INTEROPERABILITY &
CONTENT SHARING
of the general condition of the elderly. -
PLATFORM

9. Questionnaires &
surveys in electronic
Nutritional Profile format
Social General Info
Condition
Physical Likes/Dislikes
Condition
Psychical Health Status
condition Allergies
Economical
Cultural habits
Condition
Exercise
Context Information from other OASIS Services
Health Activity Environment Social Agenda
Monitoring Coach Control Communities
Biomedical Consumed Eating Sharing recipes Eating with…
parameters kcal/week compliance

12. Allergie {fish}
Dislike{cheese}
selection of meals Distribution of
meals and food and food tailored meals and food
DB filtering with to user’s needs by days/meals &
user’s profile and preferences kcal adjustment

14. User’s
Nutritional
Nutritionist creates a Sends it to the Profile & other
message/advise or Adds the local application at services works as
selects one existing triggering rules user’s home the trigger
Triggering
Rule
Advise •Appear only if:
“Today is Temperature >
really hot, do 30º
not forget to • Alignment with
drink water Public Health
frequently! Policies.
•At user’s lunch Health
•Before meals Monitoring
Environment
Control.
T=34º

21. •Test functional prototypes with
elderly users.
•Analysis of users’ feedback
•Slightly different results depending
on users’ age, gender, IT knowledge
and cultural background.
•Refinement of prototypes
•Adaptation of GUI depending on
user’s profile: age, vision
impairments..

22. 23 users
10, >75
9, [65, 75]
4, [55, 65]
Results are represented with a scoring scale of 5 points: (1 –Totally disagree, 2 – Disagree, 3 – Neutral, 4 –
Agree, 5 – Totally agree)

23. Proposes Helps Fosters the user’s Facilitates Helps the
food and cooking independency, quality the user to make
habits with easy of life and overall shopping the right
tailored to instructions status. habits with decissions
elderly user different about
needs. tools. nutrition

24.  The results show the potential of ICT technology to support
nutrition assessment.
 The nutritional management indications were well accepted by
elderly.
 Nutritionists enjoyed using the tool.
 Tests are currently in progress in pilot sites in Bulgaria, Romania
and Italy with 30 people.
 The social and cultural components of food and nutrition opens
new opportunities and needs for further research on this domain.

25. THANK YOU!

26. Héctor Galán Martí
hecgamar@itaca.upv.es
ITACA-TSB
www.tsb.upv.es

27.  Complete tool to manage patient’s nutritional information.
 The nutritionist is able to manage:
 Patient’s
profile
 Weekly menus
 Questionnaires
 Advices