Improving the quality of life of aged care residents through the joy of food: The Lantern Project

Objective: Mealtimes directly impact the quality of life of residents in aged care. The objective of The Lantern Project is to improve the dining experience of aged care residents to reduce malnutrition risk through improving dietary intake, meal.

Methods: A transdisciplinary team of aged care professionals and resident advocates was formed as a collaboration collectively known as The Lantern Project.

Results: This paper outlines the journey and timeline of The Lantern Project collaboration since its inception and the interplay between the monthly stakeholder meetings and inter-related research projects demonstrating improved outcomes.

Conclusion: Transdisciplinary collaboration offers well-grounded benefits and realistic strategies sensitive to the complexity of the aged care setting.

Policy Impact: The Lantern Project collaboration and research offers an innovative transdisciplinary approach to address the complex problem of malnutrition in the aged care setting. The collaboration has actively been involved in submissions around revised aged care quality standards and has been engaged as part of the review panel for the new aged care standards.

Practice Impact: The Lantern Project collaboration and research has developed a novel mobile application to capture and analyse food experiences to prioritise areas in need of change within the aged care food and nutrition system. Designed to deal with complexity, this tool is intended to target the complex and significant issue of malnutrition in the aged care setting.