WEB150930 - Adult Malnutrition - Tools and Algorithms to Optimize Early Recognition of Malnutrition

Malnutrition Awareness Week will be held September 28th-October 2nd, 2015. This is the fourth annual A.S.P.E.N. Malnutrition Awareness Week Program. Malnutrition is common in hospitalized patients in the United States (US), and it is associated with unfavorable outcomes including higher infection rates, poor wound healing, longer lengths of stay, and higher frequency of readmission. The purpose of Malnutrition Awareness Week is to raise awareness in healthcare professionals to consider assessing and intervening earlier. Our focus this year will be on the provision of evidence-based tools and resources for practitioners to use when diagnosing and treating malnutrition. We will also bring awareness to the importance of addressing malnutrition at the community level. It’s important for the public to realize that they need to ask about their nutrition status and advocate for optimal nutrition care as much as possible.

In this, we will begin with an overview of ASPEN's adult malnutrition publications along with a description of all the latest tools and resources for adult practitioners to use when they are evaluating their patients. We have invited Rose Ann DiMaria-Ghalili and Susan Brantley to be our presenters with Ainsley Malone as the moderator.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the pros and cons of adult malnutrition screening and assessment tools.
• Discuss how an algorithm can optimize nutrition care of malnourished or nutritionally-at-risk adults.
• Develop a facility-specific algorithm to optimize early recognition of adult malnutrition.