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Nutritional Requirements Of Adults Before Transplantation Essay

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The article “Nutritional Requirements of Adults Before Transplantation” by Hwai-Ding Lam, MD, explains concerns regarding the nutritional management of organ transplant patients both pre and post-operatively. Nutritional assessments are important pre-operatively to determine if the patient is an appropriate candidate, and post-operatively to determine a plan of care. The conditions examined include end-stage liver disease, end-stage renal failure, end-stage heart failure, end-stage pulmonary failure, and irreversible intestinal failure. The article focuses on early assessment of the nutritional status of patients with goals including replenishing malnourished patients, maintaining the muscle and energy of patients with adequate muscle and energy reserve, encouraging weight loss in patients based on body mass index, and managing the patient’s symptoms to maximize their quality of life. The nutritional assessment of a patient is an important aspect of treating organ transplant patients and involves a subjective global assessment, anthropometrics, lab values, and other methodologies. End-stage organ failure is often multi-faceted which makes identifying and assessing nutritional status of patients difficult at times; a combination of both objective and subjective parameters were established to obtain the most accurate assessment. A complex history and physical assessment is done, called the subjective global assessment (SGA). Based on the results, patients are placed into

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