Identifying nutritional risk in critical illness

AbstractPurpose of reviewWhile several tools are available to quantify nutritional risk in clinical practice, most of these consider all critically ill patients to be at equally high risk despite clear evidence that ICU patients express a range of responses to nutritional therapy.Recent findingsRecent studies indicate that patients at high nutritional risk benefit the most from aggressive nutritional intervention compared to those with lower risk. This association is most pronounced in patients with a body mass index (BMI) below 25 or greater than 35, with less benefit observed in patients with a BMI between 25 and 35. Additionally, critically ill ICU patients with a high NUTRIC score are more likely to benefit from therapeutic nutritional interventions than those with low NUTRIC scores.SummarySeveral scoring tools have been developed and validated to assess nutritional risk in critically ill patients, and this review will describe the historical, current, and future direction of risk assessment in ICU nutritional therapy.

Source: Current Respiratory Care Reports - January 31, 2017 Category: Respiratory Medicine Source Type: research