Malnutrition is a broad term that can be used to describe any imbalance in nutrition either overnutrition or undernutrition. Malnutrition seen in hospitalized patients is often a combination of cachexia (disease-related) and malnutrition (inadequate consumption of nutrients). Nutrition screening is the first step to identify patients at nutritional risk who would benefit from seeing a Dietitian. While, nutrition assessment provides the foundation for the other three steps of the Nutrition Care Process (NCP) by providing information for determining the nutrition diagnosis (ND) which should be done by a trained nutrition professional. The NCP supports this multidisciplinary approach to notify dietetics practitioners to provide appropriate intervention to improve patient outcomes, provide quality care, and decrease wasted resources. Malnutrition is prevalent around the world and is a burden on patients and health care facilities. Thus, improving patient care and outcomes begins with identifying at-risk patients. #AskMYDietitian #MDD2020 #DietitianInAction |
Date of Input: 28/09/2020 | Updated: 28/09/2020 | amirahhani