Nutrition telemedicine consultation for rural elders

Nutritional services can be limited in rural areas, therefore we developed a pilot telemedicine nutritional consultation service to determine the feasibility of using this technology for nutritional assessment. Our participants were 20 rural elderly individuals with either diabetes or hypertension. Nutritional assessment was performed using a telemedicine system that provided both audio and visual transmission. The telemedicine interviews provided sufficient information to make nutritional recommendations to all 20 participants. All participants reported that their nutritional consultations were very positive experiences and more convenient and less costly than in-person consultations.