A new systematic assessment that describes malnutrition in the context of starvation, chronic disease, and/or acute disease or injury will help with diagnosis and treatment, nutritionists say.
Up to 50 percent of patients in hospitals and nursing facilities are estimated to be malnourished and although it is widespread, confusion exists in the clinical community on how to best make a diagnosis. Malnourished patients are frequently not identified as such, and those not affected are sometimes thought to be malnourished.“Our systematic assessment is a new approach created for health care professionals to enable them to appropriately diagnosis and treat malnutrition in patients,” says Gordon Jensen, professor and head of nutritional sciences at Penn State.
