Nutritional Assessment and Treatment of the Critically Ill Patient

Course overview

Accurately determining the energy needs of patients who are critically ill will optimize nutrition support and prevent under- or overfeeding. Predicting energy needs in this patient population can be difficult due to the metabolic changes throughout the acute and recovery phases. As the role of the respiratory therapist emerges in the critical care area to include indirect calorimetry, this course will explain the roles within the interprofessional team that drive metabolic testing and the subsequent treatment recommendations that come as a result of the extrapolated data through scenario-based learning. The goal of this course is to educate nurses, registered dietitian/nutritionists, and respiratory therapists in acute care settings on the nutrition needs and interventions for patients who are critically ill.