Nutrition in acute spinal cord injury

Nutrition in acute spinal cord injury is complicated. Not every aspect of nutrition as it relates to the acutely injured spinal cord patient is known. The stress response to injury, fever, infection, sepsis, and surgery alter nutritional needs, as does the spinal cord injury itself. The sequelae of spinal cord injury, including denervation atrophy and paralysis, glucose intolerance, skin and wound breakdown, poikilothermy, anemia, respiratory paralysis, pneumonia, paralytic ileus, gastrointestinal ulcers and hemorrhage, neurogenic bowel and bladder, and depression, all affect the nutritional needs of the patient. Orthopedic appliances, pharmacologic agents, and other injuries can also alter nutritional requirements. Nutritional assessment in acute spinal cord injury is also complex. It should include medical and diet history, physical examination, intake and output measurements, prediction of energy expenditure and protein requirements, or--even better--measurements of energy expenditure with indirect methodology, using the metabolic cart or pulmonary artery catheter. Application of computerized tomography and radioisotope studies may prove valuable in the future. Finally, the direct relationship between nutrition and physiologic alterations of acute spinal cord injury necessitates that the critical care nurse incorporate nutrition-focused thinking into many aspects of the acute spinal cord--injured patient's care.