good nutrition Nursing response
good nutrition Nursing response
Nutrition is probably one of the most important things a person can do to improve and maintain their health. Feeding your body, providing the nutrients it needs to heal, is really the first step to healing.
Patient’s that have CHF have to maintain fluid and salt restrictions in order not to exacerbate their conditions. At our hospital there is a frequent flyer that refuses to take Lasix, won’t take bumex, and will not abide by diet restrictions at all. We see her every 6 weeks or so when her fluid overload becomes too much for her to live at home.
Another difficulty I see often is patients who have sores, or non-healing wounds, either because they are diabetic and too poorly control their sugar, or they simply don’t eat enough to get adequate nutrient or protein intake. I see a surprising amount of failure to thrive patients at the hospital. They have either no family or distant family, and typically have poor eating habits. Not because they don’t want to eat, but rather because they simply have no appetite, so they don’t eat. They will pick at their meal trays. The dietician will see them, order them ensure and then it will be all they can manage to bother eating half the time. I suppose it doesn’t help that our hospital’s food is… subpar. It’s really not any good at all, which.. I don’t get because one of the other hospitals in our same network has a really nice cafeteria with great food. Either our facility doesn’t have the same company or it’s just the difference in the staff. When patient’s don’t like the food, they either don’t eat, or they will have family bring in food which is often times how they ended up in the hospital to begin with.
