Nursing Education & Research

Biography

Azahara Torres Santos graduated in nursing degree by the University of León (Spain) between 2010 - 2014. When she finished her degree in 2014, she started to work in a nursing home, where she was in charge of 49 residents, in order to acquire professional experience. After one year and a half working there, she decided to try working as a nurse in a different country and moved for a job in an Endocrine and Elderly Care ward in Basildon and Thrurrock University Hospital in UK, and worked there nearly two years and a half. Back in Spain, in her native country, she got a job in the Leon University Hospital where she had her placements during the degree. Currently she is working there in general medicine and palliative care. She do not have any specialization or post graduated master although she studied several post graduated courses to keep me up to date. However, her professional career has been performed mainly on the elderly care field which find rewarding.

 

Abstract

Cancer is a disease with great importance in the sanitary field due to the high morbi-mortality. Cancer patients have a high risk of malnutrition as consequence of the deterioration of the disease itself and the gastrointestinal effects of the treatment against the disease. A large number of studies have shown that the presence of malnutrition in cancer patients reduces the prognosis, the effectiveness of the treatment as well as the quality of life of these people. There are several tools that allow assessing the nutritional status of the oncological patient before, during and after treatment. The systematic use of these assessment instruments contributes to the rapid detection of patients at risk or with malnutrition, and allows the early implementation of nutritional support strategies to help the treatment and improve the quality of life. The role of nursing in malnutrition related to cancer is crucial at the time of making the nutritional assessment and monitoring of patients during the process.

Objective: To know the different tools for the nutritional assessment of the oncological patient and its effectiveness in the detection of the risk or stage of malnutrition. On the other hand, it is proposed to determine the nutritional strategies based on scientific evidence, that are needed in order to establish care for cancer patients with malnutrition.

Material and methods: This bibliographical review was achieved through the search of scientific evidence in Pubmed, google academic, LILACS and Cochrane Library databases. The search was limited to articles published in the last five years, and its critical reading.

Results and conclusions: The studies reviewed show the existence of several nutritional assessment tools that are effective in detecting and monitoring malnutrition in cancer patients. However, they determine that these instruments are not routinely used in clinical practice, not taking into account the effects of malnutrition on the disease and its treatment. It has been also detected that there are various beneficial nutritional strategies that depend on the individual status of the patients.

Conclusion: Due to the importance of nutritional status in the prognosis and quality of life of cancer patients, it is necessary for health professionals to systematically use the available nutritional assessment tools and apply adequate nutritional support.