Nutrition Support for the Critically Ill Patient: A Guide to Practice [ Active ]

Foreword

During the latter half of the twentieth century and to the present day, critical care of seriously ill or injured patients has evolved to become the highest priority for most, especially skilled, healthcare teams in most hospitals in the United States and throughout the world. Indeed, we are rapidly approaching the point at which hospitalized patients will consist of those requiring highly specialized intensive care services in various critical care units by highly talented and motivated comprehensive teams of health-care professionals, using state-of-the-art knowledge and technology, and those with complex acute or chronic disorders or conditions that cannot be treated adequately or practically on an ambulatory basis, or in an alternate health maintenance and care facility, or at home. The vast majority of patients requiring medical and/or surgical services will be treated in same-day or short-stay facilities and discharged promptly to their homes or to appropriate assisted living facilities for recovery, convalescence, and rehabilitation. Many of the hospitalized patients will belong to opposite ends of the life cycle, that is, the pediatric and geriatric age groups, especially the latter group, which is the most rapidly increasing segment of the population in this country. Not only do these cadres of hospitalized patients experience the highest incidences of critical illnesses, complications, and collateral conditions, but a majority of them will also exhibit some form of undernutrition or malnutrition prior to, or at, admission or will develop nutritional deficiencies or aberrations during the course of their diagnostic and therapeutic interventions throughout their hospitalization. The adage that "No disease process, injury, or major disorder can be expected to respond as favorably to therapeutic medical and/or surgical treatments when the patient is malnourished or undernourished as when the patient is optimally nourished" remains as true today as when it was first uttered, perhaps by Hippocrates, centuries ago. This fact alone justifies the production of this second edition of Nutrition Therapy for the Critically Ill Patient: A Guide to Practice by Gail A. Cresci, PhD, RD, and the distinguished cast of colleagues and authors that she has assembled to share their vast expertise, in depth and in a broad field of nutrition-related topics. Moreover, in more than three dozen chapters, the editor and her contributors have conscientiously and effectively addressed and dealt with the most important of the myriad complex aspects of nutrition therapy in critically ill patients, which is highly essential to their survival and subsequently to the quality of their lives.