Redefining Nutritional Frailty: Interventions for Weight Loss Due to Undernutrition
Nutritional frailty is an unintentional, precipitous loss of both lean and fat mass resulting almost entirely from a reduction in food intake.Unintentional weight loss is associated with functional decline and increased mortality.Efforts to minimize nutritional frailty should emphasize early interventions to maintain and enhance oral food intake; these efforts can include improved esthetics, social support at mealtime, assistance with eating/feeding, and treatment with orexigenic agents.When oral food intake is insufficient, protein/calorie supplements or enteral/parenteral feedings by tube may be utilized. However, the extent of positive impact on medical outcomes is generally modest and complications are common with tube feedings. Nutritional frailty is an unintentional, precipitous loss of both lean and fat mass resulting almost entirely from a reduction in food intake. Unintentional weight loss is associated with functional decline and increased mortality. Efforts to minimize nutritional frailty should emphasize early interventions to maintain and enhance oral food intake; these efforts can include improved esthetics, social support at mealtime, assistance with eating/feeding, and treatment with orexigenic agents. When oral food intake is insufficient, protein/calorie supplements or enteral/parenteral feedings by tube may be utilized. However, the extent of positive impact on medical outcomes is generally modest and complications are common with tube feedings.
