Nutritional Support of the Critically Ill Small Animal Patient

Over the past couple of decades, a component of veterinary critical care was simply to ensure that nutritional support formed some part of the treatment plan. Great emphasis was made on early placement of feeding tubes in critically ill veterinary patients to facilitate enteral feeding. Progress has been made on techniques for nutritional provision, establishing feasibility of nutritional interventions in various patient populations and establishing that nutritional support does have an important role in veterinary critical care. Some refinement of appropriate caloric targets in critically ill animals has decreased complications relating to overfeeding, but further work is required to establish optimal feeding regimes.