Clinical nutrition : official journal of the European Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition
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Comparative Study
A comparative study of polyurethane and silicone cuffed-catheters in long-term home total parenteral nutrition patients.
The purpose of this study was to report our compared experience of long-term complications with polyurethane (LeaderCuff) and silicone (Lifevac) tunnelled, cuffed catheters in home adult TPN patients. ⋯ Both Lifevac and LeaderCuff catheters enable safe, long-term, venous access and prevent, in most cases, inadvertent catheter dislodgement. There is little evidence, from our study, to support the hypothesis that polyurethane catheters offer more security than silicone catheters in home TPN adult patients.
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Specific nutrition standards are now developed by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) in order to improve the nutritional status in hospitalized patients. We investigated the use of clinical nutrition in Danish hospitals and compared it with the standards of JCAHO by doing a questionnaire-based investigation among doctors and nurses randomly selected in 40 hospitals including internal medicine, gastroenterology, oncology, orthopedic departments and intensive care units (ICU). Overall, 857 (43.4%) responded to the questionnaire (doctors: 395, nurses: 462). ⋯ Seventy-six percent found that nutritional assessment should be performed during hospital stays, but only 23% monitored the nutritional status. Sixty-eight percent stated that responsibility should be assigned to one or more persons, but this was the case in only 20%The use of clinical nutrition in Danish hospitals did not fulfill the standards for nutrition support according to the criteria established by JCAHO. Special efforts should be aimed at education, specific screening tools and introduction of guidelines in clinical nutrition.