NUTRITION IN REHABILITATION
Nutrition in a rehabilitation setting often involves patients who could be on either end of the nutritional spectrum, with debilitated patients who are undernourished at one end, and patients who have recently been admitted for complications of obesity, such as coronary artery disease and stroke, at the other end.
In between are patients in whom current clinical conditions require optimum nutritional support for recuperation and to enable effective participation in rehabilitation exercise programs.
This discussion will focus mainly on relevant nutritional issues ranging from standard nutritional intervention to aggressive nutritional support, available nutritional interventions, and the process of nutritional screening and support as they pertain to rehabilitation medicine.
While nutritional support is often through the oral route, there may be instances in which this route is not available and others may need to be used.
There are special nutritional issues peculiar to the elderly and mentally handicapped owing to a variety of factors, such as poor intake, poor chewing abilities, swallowing difficulties, associated debilities, and mental apathy.