Dietetics

Understanding the Role of Nutrition in Your Wellbeing

The foods we choose have an important role to play in how we live our lives. A regular, balanced eating pattern can boost strength and energy, enhance cognitive function and emotional resilience, strengthen the immune system, help maintain our functional capacity and improve overall quality of life. Our eating pattern has a significant impact on our physical, psychological, and social wellbeing.

There are many conditions that can be helped with tailored dietary support, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, malnutrition, gastrointestinal issues, liver disease, autoimmune conditions, neurological conditions, mental health conditions, addiction recovery, osteoporosis, and much more. Many medical conditions and disabilities can be improved with personalised nutrition support. Some medical conditions or disabilities may not be directly improved by nutrition intervention, but might make it difficult to maintain a regular balanced eating pattern – a tailored approach to nutrition can make a meaningful difference in how you navigate and manage these conditions.

This is especially true for people who live with a disability, who face additional challenges to maintaining an enjoyable, regular eating pattern that meets their needs and make achieving their NDIS goals more challenging.

What can our Dietitian offer you?

Our Accredited Practising Dietitian takes a holistic approach to nutrition and translates evidence-based, up-to-date science into practical strategies that support long-term, sustainable eating patterns that are realistic, enjoyable, and affirming of all aspects of wellbeing. They take time to get to know you personally and understand your goals, and collaborate with you to develop actionable strategies to achieve those goals that consider your unique food preferences, sensory needs, communication style, lifestyle, financial situation, medical conditions and most importantly, your enjoyment. They are committed providing care that respects all aspects of personhood, and provide support that is weight-neutral, culturally respectful, and affirming of neurodiversity, gender, and sexuality, and will work with you in a way that is respectful, judgement-free, trauma-informed, and focused on your personal strengths and needs.

They also consider any challenges you may face due to social circumstances or disability, ensuring that any recommendations they have for your eating pattern are adaptable and supportive of your unique needs.

They can also provide education and training to support workers and family members on how to best support you to maintain an eating pattern that meets your needs or reduce stress and conflict around mealtimes.

What to Expect When You See Our Dietitian

Once the dietitian has spoken to you about your eating pattern, likes and dislikes, assessed your unique circumstances, they will work with you to establish achievable nutritional goals. These goals can include increasing the variety of foods in your usual eating pattern, helping you improve your understanding and ability to manage health conditions like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or diabetes, improving independence around shopping, cooking, and independent living, improving the relationship with food and body image, or preventing a decline in your functional capacity.

They will then provide education tailored to your learning and communication needs about food, nutrition and the body, and collaborate with you to develop strategies or an action plan that use this knowledge to achieve your goals.

The specific strategies are diverse and may include topics such as nutrition education for making informed food choices, developing ways to overcome barriers created by a disability, portion education and meal planning, learning about food labels, avoiding and providing strategies for preparing meals that align with your needs.

They will then organise follow-up appointments with you to check in with how these strategies are working out for you. If things are going well, they will work with you on how to continue towards your goals or maintain the progress you have made. If there have been challenges that have prevented you from putting the strategies developed into action, they will help you work out what those barriers were how we can modify the strategies to achieve your goals.

Our dietitian takes referrals for NDIS, Medicare, and privately funded clients. They can help with:

• Medical Nutrition Therapy for specific medical conditions including (but not limited to):
  • Diabetes
  • Cardiovascular disease
  • Gastrointestinal disorders
  • Hypertension (High Blood Pressure)
  • High or low cholesterol
  • Multiple Sclerosis
  • Polycystic Ovary Syndrome
  • Liver disease
  • Constipation or diarrhoea
  • Malnutrition, including diagnosis, ongoing management and access to oral nutrition supplements to improve recovery
  • Dysphagia (Difficulty swallowing) and ensuring adequate nutrition if modified texture foods and/or fluids

• Nutritional education for general health and wellbeing.
• Encouraging a wide and varied diet.
• Fostering a positive relationship with food and body image.
• Creating a positive mealtime environment for individuals, families, and supported care environments.
• Teaching how to prepare tasty, nutritious meals.
• Building food-related independent living skills.
• Guidance on reading food labels and grocery shopping.
• Providing education and assistance with developing personalised meal plans or menus to meet specific needs, including medical conditions.
• Understanding and managing food-related behaviours of concern.
• Training and educating family members and/or support workers.
• Understanding body cues for hunger and fullness.

Our dietitian has a particular interest and experience working individuals, families, and supported living providers around autism spectrum differences and sensory regulation needs, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, acquired brain injury, and intellectual disability, as well as addiction recovery, nutrition for mental health, and auto-immune conditions.

Referrals

​Referrals can be sent via the following form link, via email to support@pahs.com.au, or via phone on 08 8322 2792. 

We offer home consults from as far south as Aldinga to as far north as Glenelg, or statewide via telehealth. Alternatively, participants can attend in-clinic consults at 4/378 Main South Road, Morphett Vale, SA, 5162.