Enteral nutritional therapy in imminent or existing nutritional deficits
- 13.12.2007
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- Redaktion
Michaela Brandstätter, Frankfurt
In patients with a severe malabsorption syndrome due to lasting or temporary functional disorders of the digestive tract, food intake via the oral route is either impossible or disordered to such extent that, as nutritional requirements are no longer met, an enteral nutritional therpay is needed.
The nutritional status of a patient is of great importance for his well-being and the course of his disease. Malnutrition affects a patient’s metabolism and immune defense; it is accompanied by organic disfunctioning, delayed wound healing and a higher predisposition to infections. The present paper informs about the principles of enteral nutritional therapy in practice. Provided attention is paid to some precautionary measures, enteral nutrition is a simple and easy form of clinical nutritional therapy.
What is needed is competence in the field of malnutrition, indications, recognition and avoidance of complications, and how to calculate nutritional requirements. Individual energy and nutrient requirements as well as fluid requirements are determined on the basis of clinical evaluation, nutritional anamnesis and metabolic data. The selection of adequate fluid food and/or preparations administered via stomach tube and a precise calculation and strict controls of the nutrient requirements allow to fix a regimen which, however, should be checked at regular intervals.
If these measures are observed, the nutritional therapy discussed may successfully and lastingly applied also at home as a means of maintaining or returning, resp., their independence to mobile patients. In patients needing care, the therapy is easily learnable and applicable by family members and/or nursing services.
Keywords: Malnutrition, clinical nutrition, enteral feeding, parenteral feeding, formula for alimentation via stomach tube, fluid food, nutritional status, nutrition risk score
Sie finden den Artikel in deutscher Sprache in Ernährungs Umschau 12/07 ab Seite 710.
