Managing Adult Malnutrition
Including a pathway for the appropriate use of
oral nutritional supplements (ONS)
Overview
Malnutrition can be disease-related or caused by social factors. This document specifically focusses on the identification and management of undernutrition related to, or caused by, disease. Disease-related malnutrition can be challenging to manage due to the effects of the disease and associated treatments and may require multimodal treatment. This is in contrast to social malnutrition arising from economic and environmental factors (e.g. poverty, isolation, poor mobility or self-neglect), where the provision of adequate food and drink can result in the reversal of malnutrition. It should be noted that in some cases of disease-related malnutrition social factors may also play a part.
The following overview gives information on the size of the problem, clinical consequences, cost implications and groups at risk of malnutrition.
Four Steps to Managing Malnutrition including Unintentional Weight Loss
The process of managing disease related malnutrition can be broken down into four key steps:
Management of malnutrition according to risk category
A screening and management pathway using 'MUST' that can be used across care settings to identify adults who are malnourished or at risk of malnutrition.
Oral Nutritional Supplements: Where individuals require (or already have) a prescription of ONS, this pathway will guide you in setting goals, deciding on dose and duration of ONS, how and when to monitor progress and when to discontinue prescription.
A Guide to Managing Adult Malnutrition in the Community: the complete document is available.
Resources
A selection of publications for use by healthcare professionals, patients and carers are available in the resources section of the website.
Support for Patients & Carers
A number of resources are available that have been developed to support patients and carers.
Further Information
We can be contacted regarding the malnutrition pathway materials and website
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