Nutrition Therapy
Optimal nutrition status is vital throughout healing till wellness
The Nutrition Therapy is of central importance for our ability to handle diseases in general, infections, surgery and trauma in particular. The objective of the Nutrition Therapy is to maintain or improve the nutrition status by avoiding and treatment of malnutrition, maintaining body tissue and functioning plasma protein stores and to prevent macro- and micronutrient deficiency.
Nutritional support can be provided either orally (oral nutritional supplements) or through a feeding tube (Enteral Nutrition) or, when the digestive tract cannot be used, through an intravenous catheter that is inserted directly into the veins (Parenteral Nutrition).
The definitive type of nutrition therapy is largely depending on the patients condition, illness and needs. E.g. surgical patients in an ICU tend to have needs different from those patients undergoing anti-cancer treatment or chronic dialysis yet again need another nutritional support.
Processes in nutrition therapy
The field of Nutrition Therapy comprises all kinds of nutritional support from additions to normal oral diets for patients who do not or cannot eat sufficiently until complete parenteral nutrition regimes for patients who are unable to meet their nutritional needs by oral or enteral nutrition. Body reserves can normally make up for short fasting periods, however in already malnourished patients or patients at-risk of malnutrition even short periods without adequate nutrition present an additional hazard which could lead to a negative clinical outcome with increased morbidity and mortality.Depending on the populations, approximately 20-50% of hospitalized patients present with a state of malnutrition and thus need nutrition therapy. Generally speaking, two different approaches are available, the using the gastrointestinal system thus being referred to as enteral nutrition, the other bypassing the gastrointestinal system thus being referred to as parenteral nutrition.
The definitive type of nutrition therapy is largely depending on the patients condition, illness and needs. E.g. patients on the ICU tend to have needs different from those a burn patient might have, and patients undergoing anti-cancer treatment or chronic dialysis yet again need another nutritional support.