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About this tool
Daily drink target for an older adult using the ESPEN geriatric minimum or 30 ml per kg, split into small prompted servings anchored to meals and stopped before bed.
This planner turns an older adult's daily drink target into a timed list of small prompted servings, because thirst and the kidney's ability to concentrate urine both decline with age and an older person can be dehydrated before feeling thirsty. It uses the ESPEN 2019 geriatric guideline, which adopts the EFSA Adequate Intake for water from beverages — 1.6 litres a day for women and 2.0 litres for men — or the clinical alternative of 30 ml per kg of body weight with a 1.5 litre floor. It is written for family carers, care-home staff and older adults building a drinking routine they can actually keep.
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Enter the values you already know.
Fine-tune the options to match your scenario.
Read the result and use it in your planning or reporting.
Splits the day into 80-300 ml drinks, which are easier to manage and better absorbed than a few large volumes.
The last drink lands two hours before bedtime to cut night waking and the falls that follow it.
Drinks that fall within 45 minutes of a meal are labelled with it, so the prompt attaches to something already happening.
The ESPEN 2019 geriatric guideline sets the minimum drink intake at 1.6 litres a day for women and 2.0 litres for men. These are beverages only — the better-known 2.0 and 2.5 litre figures are total water, which counts the roughly 20-30% that comes from food.
It suits people well away from average weight. At 30 ml per kg, a 70 kg adult gets 2,100 ml and a 55 kg adult 1,650 ml, but a floor of 1,500 ml a day applies so a very small or frail adult is not given an implausibly low target.
About two hours. Nocturia is a leading cause of night-time falls in older adults, so this planner places the final serving two hours before the bedtime you enter and spreads everything else across the earlier part of the day.
Yes. This planner adds 300 ml a day in a warm spell of 28-33°C and 600 ml above 33°C to cover higher sweat and respiratory losses. Anyone on a prescribed fluid restriction must keep to that restriction instead and ask their clinician before adding anything.
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