Prescott
home picks up on flax flour buzz
Friday, March
18, 2005 - Natalie Miller
A 60-bed nursing home in Prescott has connected
with OMNI's Garden Terrace for information about
incorporating flax flour into its residents diets
After hearing about the success of the flax flour
program during a seminar in Ottawa, Wellington
House’s director of nursing brought the
idea back to the long-term care home. Jennifer
Mills, dietary supervisor, is eager to find
out more about how Garden Terrace introduced
the program. She has exchanged information with
Garden Terrace Administrator Karl Samuelson
and has plans to contact Garden Terrace’s
supplier of the flax flour.
Jennifer says the flax flour program could be
beneficial to the close to 40 residents who
receive high-fibre foods and some pharmaceutical
laxatives at Wellington House.
“We want to try and start incorporating
the flax into the diets of our residents on
the prune list,” she says.
These residents receive prunes or prune juice
two to three times a day, get extra bran in
their hot cereal and toast with high-fibre jam.
“We’ve been doing this for quite
a while,” says Jennifer. “If we
can get on board with the flax flour we’ve
heard it almost eliminates the laxatives.”
Former Garden Terrace nutritional care manager
Andrea Smith, along with director of care Elisabeth
Hinton, rolled out the flax flour program at
the Kanata long-term care home in the spring
of 2004. Andrea interned with a home in Nova
Scotia that was using the flax flour.
After a month of adding two tablespoons to
residents’ diets daily, Garden Terrace
reduced the number of laxatives required from
564 to eight.
Calling the results “undeniable”,
OMNI’s nutritional care co-ordinator is
planning to introduce the program to all OMNI
homes by the end of the year. Almonte Country
Haven has already begun using flax flour on a
regular basis for about 50 per cent of its residents.
Village Green in Selby has expressed interest
in the program.
