Question

Food insecurity during covid-19:

How would you conduct a nutrition assessment with these individuals- I.e. What tools would you use/incorporate, ABCDEFG?

Implications, if any on nutritional assessment in the future

Answer 1

The nutrition is the process of providing better food necessary for better growth and health.Drinking and food which provide energy nutrients and nutrients is essential for healthylife.The nutrition reduce the majority of the disease especially the chronic diease leading to overall, health and well being.

Nutrition is essential for the patient who suffer the COVID -19 in hospital and community.COVID-19 is a disease caused by the virus named as coronavirus and the patients suffer mild to moderte symptoms which lead to hospitalisation.Specific symptoms in COVID-19 the patients reduced appetite and ability to drink and eat.Fever,coughing,fatigue,pain,shortness  in breathing,change in taste and smell which lead to reduced appetite..Nutritional screening should be done in the first 24 hours of hospital admission for the patients who have severe symptoms such as cardiovascular symptoms,chronic respiratory disease and they are at risk of malnutrition.Nutrition assessment is a part of initial assessement procedures for all the patients.

The tool is used for assessing the nutrition is Clinical Examination- is an important component but while malnutrition produces a range of clinical signs these tend to be subtle and nonspecific until malnutrition is advanced..

1)Anthropemetric assessment : Weight- compare the current weight with tables of percentiles of weight by age and sex. Current weight can be compared to previous records,known or usual weight and percentage weight change over a time period.Weight loss of 5% or more over one month is significant but the rate of loss is also important with faster indicating more acute problems. 2) Body mass index- is calculated by weight and height measurement.And is calculated by weight divided by height2 .But the height may difficult to measure in hospital patients and misleading in older patients. Biochemical test- These clinical practise they are often affected by acute illness and then unreliable nutritional indicators.Albumin has long half life and poor nutritional index,although it may indicate prognosis as it reflect the severity of illness.

3) Clinical assessment-checking of visible signs of nutritional deficiencies such as emaciation like loss of fat tissue as a result of low energy intake or nutrient loss.Assessment for nutritional status in infants under 6 months involves checking of acute malnutrition such as visible wasting,recent weight loss or failure to gain weight.

4) Dietary assessment- Assesseing the food and fluid intake is essential part and it provide information related to to the changes in appetite,reasons for inadequate food intake during or after illness.It can be determine by 24 hour recall in which the patient is asked to remember in detail every food and drink consumed during the previous 24 hours .This method can be repeated in several occassion to account for day to day variation in intake.

5) Food security assessment- Availability of food,food access of adequate resources to obtain a sufficient quantity and quality of food and food utilistion by means of proper biological use of food by the body.It defines as the food security as having all times both physical and economic access to sufficient food to meet dietary need for a productive and healthy life.This is  the nutritional assessment used in the future.