Small Changes – Big Results: Talking to your Patients about Diet and Lifestyle Modification

Presented by Carolyn Feibig, MS, RD

Disclosures: None 

1.00 AACVPR CEUs

How to have meaningful conversations when addressing lifestyle/nutrition modifications throughout the patients AHF/ALD journey from diagnosis to post transplant. Will take a look at the DASH diet – dissect the major components into easy-to-understand components. Provide meaningful context about the benefits for following the DASH diet to help increase motivation to create these lifestyle changes. In this session strategies will be presented on how small changes over time will lead to great success. We discuss the method of communicating changing from talking in absolutes to a most-of-the-time conversation to help improve adherence among our patient population. 

Learning Objectives: 

1. The audience member will develop a deeper understanding of the DASH Diet and the benefits it provides to their patient population as a life-long eating pattern. They will be able to distinguish between a healthful DASH style eating pattern vs a Fad Diet eating pattern and thus communicate the benefits of DASH to their patient.

2. The audience member will be able to engage in meaningful conversations with their patient about how to make lifestyle changes. Moving the conversations from the negative (cannots) to the positive (can) will help the patient feel engaged and part of the team. Using language that impowers the patient to take an active role in the desired lifestyle modifications.

3. The audience member will learn techniques to establish a rapport with the patient even when discussing sensitive topics such as weight and daily activity. Many times, people who are overweight feel judged leading to shame. Having open honest conversations and demonstrating how small changes make a big difference will help break down the wall of perceived judgement and allow for real conversations and action in a safe space. 

4. The audience member after this session will be able to guide their patient population from beginning diagnosis to post transplant on how to make small lifelong positive changes while following the DSAH lifestyle. They will be able to help their patients see the long-term benefit to following a DASH lifestyle for life not just as a means to an end. They will leave with resources they can use when counseling their patients and reputable DASH diet recipe web links.

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