Nurse protocol: nutrition and malnutrition assessment

Abstract

Hospitalized older adults are at risk of malnutrition. Nurses should carefully assess and monitor the nutritional status of the older hospitalized patient so that appropriate nutrition-related interventions can be implemented in timely fashions.

Elderly patients are at risk of malnutrition due to dietary, economic, psychological and physiological factors. Older people are at risk of developing malnutrition. This condition or the risk of its development is observed in 39–47% of hospitalized elderly patients. The use of the Mini-Nutritional Assessment (MNA) is recommended to identify malnutrition or the risks of its development. The MNA scale takes into account the diet, patient mobility, BMI, the dynamics of weight loss, psychological stress, acute diseases, dementia and other mental features of the patient.

Management plan of a patient with malnutrition: monitoring the implementation of the recommendations of a dietitian, clinical pharmacologist, and other specialists who determine the patient’s nutrition, ensuring adequate supply of nutrients, clinical nutrition (artificial nutrition, special nutritional support, parenteral, enteral nutrition, or a combination thereof), oral administration dietary supplements.