Use of nutritional complete supplements in older adults with dementia: systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical outcomes

Background & aims Malnutrition is prevalent in people diagnosed with dementia however ensuring adequate oral intake within this group is often problematic. It is important to determine whether providing nutritionally complete oral nutritional supplements (ONS) drinks is an effective way of improving clinical outcomes for older people with dementia. This paper systematically reviewed clinical, wellbeing and nutritional outcomes in people with long-term cognitive impairment. Methods The CINAHL, Medline and EMBASE databases were searched from their inception until January 2012. Reference lists of the included papers, foreign language papers and review articles obtained were manually searched. Results Twelve articles were included in the review containing 1076 people in the supplement groups (intervention) and 748 people in the control groups. Meta-analysis shows there was a significant improvement in weight (p = <0.0001), Body Mass Index (BMI) (p =