Eating and drinking are essential for maintenance of nutrition and hydration, but are also important for pleasure and social interactions. The ability to eat and drink hinges on a complex and coordinated system, resulting in significant potential for things to go wrong.The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has published updated guidance on how to support people who have eating and drinking difficulties, particularly towards the end of life.Decisions about nutrition and hydration and when to start, continue or stop treatment are some of the most challenging to make in medical practice. The newly updated guidance aims to support healthcare professionals to work together with patients, their families and carers to make decisions around nutrition and hydration that are in the best interests of the patient. It covers the factors affecting our ability to eat and drink, strategies to support oral nutrition and hydration, techniques of clinically-assisted nutrition and hydration, and the legal and ethical framework to guide decisions about giving and withholding treatment, emphasising the two key concepts of capacity and best interests.This article aims to provide an executive summary of the guidance.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.7861/clinmed.2021-0161 | DOI Listing |
Mol Pharm
January 2025
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, St. John's University, 8000 Utopia Parkway, Queens, New York 11439, United States.
Although glycine is the simplest of the amino acids, its solution and solid-state properties are far from straightforward. The aqueous solubility of glycine plays an important role in various applications, including nutrition, food products, biodegradable plastics, and drug development. There is evidence that glycine in subsaturated pH 3-8 solutions forms a dimer, as suggested by several techniques.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNurs Rep
December 2024
Department of Philosophy, Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID 83209, USA.
Background/objectives: Caring for patients at the end of life can involve issues that are ethically and legally fraught: withholding or withdrawing artificial nutrition and hydration, pain control that could hasten death, aggressive treatment that is continued when it seems only to be prolonging suffering, patients who request medical assistance in dying, and so forth. Clinicians may find that their deeply held ethical principles conflict with law, institutional policy, or patients' choices. In these situations, they may consider either refusing to participate in procedures that they find morally abhorrent (conscientious refusal) or providing care that they believe to be ethically obligatory despite being contrary to law or policy (conscientious commitment).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Electr Bioimpedance
January 2024
Departamento de Física, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Exactas, Universidad de Oriente. Santiago de Cuba, Cuba.
Electrical bioimpedance is based on the opposition exerted by body tissues to the passage of an electrical current. This characteristic allows the assessment of the individual's body composition, nutritional status, and hydration status. Electrical bioimpedance can be used to estimate body composition, health-related markers, general health status, diagnosis and prognostic of diseases, evaluation of treatment progress, and others.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSemin Oncol Nurs
December 2024
Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York.
Objectives: This paper addresses nutritional challenges in advanced cancer and at the end of life and implications for oncology nursing practice.
Methods: Recent literature and position statements regarding nutritional support in advanced disease and at the end of life were reviewed and case studies were developed to illustrate the nutritional issues facing patients and family members.
Results: The literature and case examples illustrate the many issues confronting patients, families, and clinicians related to nutritional support including balancing the goals of comfort versus prolonged survival.
J Trace Elem Med Biol
November 2024
Course on Research for Nutrition and Growth, Teikyo Heisei University, Tokyo, Japan.
Objective: This study evaluated the efficacy and safety of NPC-25, zinc histidine hydrate, in patients with hypozincemia. This randomized multicenter active-controlled open-label trial aimed to verify the non-inferiority of NPC-25 to NOBELZIN™, zinc acetate dihydrate.
Methods: Participants whose serum zinc concentrations were <70 μg/dL at two points within 8 weeks before the start of treatment were randomized 1:1 into the NPC-25 (active drug) administration group and the NOBELZIN™ (control drug) administration group, using dynamic allocation.
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