Hydration in the Older People Population, Hydration, Health Sciences

I joined the School of Health Sciences in October 2016 as a Lecturer in Health Sciences on completion of my PhD 'Understanding, recognising and preventing dehydration in older residents living in care homes: a mixed methods study'. I have continued to develop my research interests in this field, exploring ways of supporting older care home residents to drink well to prevent dehydration. 

My teaching roles include teaching on pre-and post registration courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels across the Faculty of Medicine and Health, post-graduate supervision and module lead for the MclinEd Dissertation. I am currently a primary supervisor for a PhD student who is investigating how to support people with dementia to drink well.

Prior to joining the UEA, I trained and worked as both a general nurse and midwife before joining the Norfolk Arthritis Register, a longitudinal observational study of inflammatory polyarthritis (IP) aiming to establish the cause, incidence and outcome of IP. My research nurse and managerial roles provided extensive research experience. 

Hydration and nutritional care for older residents living in care homes.

Systematic reviews.

Inflammatory polyarthritis.

Studies include:

The ‘Making Drinking Fun’ Study: an activities-based programme supporting care home residents’ to drink well.

The Dehydration Recognition in our Elders, DRIE, study (http://driestudy.appspot.com/) investigated the diagnostic accuracy of commonly used signs and symptoms of dehydration in older people.

Eating and Drinking Well in Dementia, EDWINA. Systematic reviews of interventions aiming to support people with dementia to eat and drink well.

Thinking about Drinking. a qualitative study exploring the views of residents, their families and carers regarding hydration care in care homes.

Scoping review of nutritional and hydration guidelines for care homes.

Systematic review investigating the impact of a Mediterranean diet on musculoskeletal health.

Selected Publications:

Abdelhamid A, Bunn DK, et al. Effectiveness of interventions to directly improve, maintain or facilitate food and drink intake in people with dementia: Eating and Drinking Well IN dementiA (EDWINA) systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Geriatrics. 2016. 16:26. DOI: 10.1186/s12877-016-0196-3.

Bunn DK, Abdelhamid A, Copley M, Cowap V, Dickinson, Gray L, Howe A, Killett A, Lee J, Li F, Poland F, Potter J, Richardson K, Smithard D, Fox C, Hooper L. Effectiveness of interventions to indirectly improve, maintain or facilitate food and drink intake in people with dementia: Eating and Drinking Well IN dementiA (EDWINA), a systematic review. BMC Geriatrics. 2016. May 4;16:89. doi: 10.1186/s12877-016-0256-8.

Bunn D, Hooper L. What characteristics of long-term care homes are associated with dehydration? The Gerontologist. 2016. 56(S3):661.

Bunn, DK, Jimoh, F, Howard Wilsher, S, Hooper, L. Increasing fluid intake and reducing dehydration risk in older people living in long-term care: a systematic review. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association. 2015. 16:101-5 

Hooper L, Bunn D, Downing A, Jimoh F, Groves J, Free C, Cowap V, Potter J, Hunter P, Shepstone L. Which frail older people become dehydrated? The UK DRIE study. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci, 2015. Vol 00, No 1-7 doi: 10.1093/gerona/glv205. Available at: http://biomedgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/11/09/gerona.glv205.abstract.

Hooper L & Bunn DK. Detecting dehydration in older people: useful tests. Nursing Times. 2015. 111(32/33):12-16.

Hooper L, Whitelock S, Bunn D. Beating dehydration – one specialist dementia home shows how to do it. Nursing Times. 2015. 111(34/35): 16-19.

Hooper L, Abdelhamid A, Ali A, Bunn DK, et al. Diagnostic accuracy of calculated serum osmolarity to predict dehydration in older people: adding value to pathology lab reports. 2015. BMJ Open;5:e008846.

Hooper L, Bunn D, et al. Which frail older people become dehydrated? The UK DRIE study. Journals of Gerontology Series A. 2015. doi:10.1093/gerona/glv205.

Hooper L, Bunn D, Jimoh FO, Fairweather-Tait SJ. Water-loss dehydration and ageing. Mechanisms of Ageing and Development. 2014;136-137:50-58. DOI: 10.1016/j.mad.2013.11.009.

Hooper L, Bunn DK, Abdelhamid A, Gillings R, Jennings A, Maas K, Millar S, Twomlow E, Hunter PR, Shepstone L, Potter JF, Fairweather-Tait SJ. Can we use urine to tell if we are dehydrated? Diagnostic accuracy in older people. American Journal of Nutrition. 2016. 104: 3-4; First published on line June 15. doi:10.3945/ajcn.116.137703.

Siervo M, Bunn D, Prado C, Hooper L. Accuracy of prediction equations for serum osmolarity in frail older people with and without diabetes. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2014. Sep;100(3):867-876.

• Research methods
• Hydration and nutritional care for older people