Decide on a degenerative condition that you wish to research (e.g. obesity, Alzheimer’s T2DM, depression, arthritis, Parkinson’s etc.) and complete the essay plan. Check your choice with the module leader. ? Make up a health history for a 65 year old that has been diagnosed with your chosen condition. Complete a linear timeline ; pedigree chart; the clinical reasoning tool; table of test results, food plans (1,2 & 3); supplementary food actives (supplement order form & ingredients list); potential drug/nutrient/botanical interactions (DNI form) for that 65 year old.. You also have to analyse the data from the food plans for your chosen phase of life in one of the following dietary analysis programmes: • Diet plan 6 • Food tables • Cron-o-meter • Nutritics • Nutrition data ? Write your introduction to the essay which states its aims and objectives, introduces the case and his/her health history and the areas of pathophysiology your assignment will focus on. Demonstrate your awareness of complexity. This is a person centred, not a disease centred assignment. ? Use each of the stages of life as a heading after the introduction: preconceptual, Intrauterine, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood and maturity. ? Under each of the life-stages, reflect what is going on for that person in terms of lifestyle diet, genetics, epigenetics, stress, environment etc. and how that contributes to the mechanisms of pathophysiology which underpin disease expression. Choose only a few mechanisms of pathophysiology to focus your assignment on and take into account the impact of genetics, toxicity, nutrient deficiencies/excesses and theories of aging. Then justify nutritional interventions, based on their mechanisms of actions, to ameliorate the mechanisms of pathophysiology you have discussed. In this way you can critically evaluate, justify and prioritise a personalised nutrition approach for every stage of life that helps to minimise pathophysiological mechanisms which lead to disease expression. Use a table of test results from preconception to old age that reflect the justification and prioritisation of your approach. Throughout the body of the essay you will have to demonstrate how a nutritional strategy can be altered to meet the needs of the individual at various stages. ? The assignment conclusion should refer to the aims and objectives and whether the essay met those. Acknowledge complexity and breadth of issues and what the assignment was unable to address as well as what it did address. Use models of reflection to briefly evalua
