Effectiveness of interventions to improve, maintain or facilitate oral food and/or drink intake in people with dementia: systematic review

Background There are over 0.8 million people living with dementia in the UK. The needs of people with dementia are increasingly complex as the illness progresses. Eating and drinking difficulties are a major source of ill health and stress across the stages of dementia in multiple settings. The evidence on what interventions support people with dementia in continuing to eat and drink well needs to be updated, and the full set of interventions assessed. To ensure people with dementia and their carers have access to the best current evidence, which address the questions that are important to them, we consulted with stakeholder groups and formulated specific questions to be addressed by a systematic review. The evidence will be summarised in light of these questions.