Catégorie d'article: Research Article
Publié en ligne: 07 déc. 2017
Pages: 83 - 89
Reçu: 08 sept. 2017
Accepté: 15 oct. 2017
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/raon-2017-0060
Mots clés
© 2018 Anija Orel, Matjaz Homan, Rok Blagus, Evgen Benedik, Rok Orel, Natasa Fidler Mis
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Background
Commercial enteral formulas are generally recommended for gastrostomy feeding in patients with severe neurologic impairment. However, pureed food diets are still widely used and even gaining popularity among certain groups. We tried to compare the effectiveness of gastrostomy feeding for treatment of severe malnutrition with either enteral formulas or pureed feeds.
Patients and methods
A 6-month nutritional intervention was made with 37 malnourished children, adolescents and young adults (2–26 years old) with severe neurologic impairment (Gross Motor Function Classification system [GMFCS] grade V). The individual needs were calculated. Participants were fed by gastrostomy with either enteral formulas (n = 17) or pureed food (n = 20). Measurements to assess nutritional status were made at the beginning and at the end of intervention.
Results
The Z scores for weight-for-age and for the body-mass index increased more in enteral formula than in pureed food group (2.07
Conclusions
The results suggest that even professionally planned pureed food diet is less effective than commercial enteral formula for nutritional rehabilitation of malnourished patients with severe neurologic impairment. However, larger and if possible randomised clinical studies should be made to confirm our findings.