Undernutrition in Acquired Brain Injury Rehabilitation: A Retrospective GLIM Exploration

BACKGROUND: Neuroscience nurses play a pivotal role in identifying nutritional risk factors, monitoring patients, and initiating interventions to optimize recovery outcomes. Patients with moderate to severe acquired brain injury (ABI) are at risk of undernutrition during subacute rehabilitation, yet prevalence is rarely described using recent diagnostic criteria. This study aimed to explore the Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) criteria in routinely collected clinical data and to describe undernutrition in patients with ABI at admission and discharge from in-hospital rehabilitation. METHODS: A quantitative descriptive study was conducted using nutritional data extracted from electronic health records stored in a clinical database. The analysis focused on GLIM criteria, including low body mass index (BMI), disease-related inflammation, and the risk of reduced food intake. RESULTS: A total of 2,645 patients were included. A low BMI was observed in 10% of 2,465 patients at admission and in 8% of 2,147 patients at discharge. Inflammation was present in 82% of 912 patients at admission and 71% of 420 at discharge. Reduced intake was noted in 61% of 1,745 patients at admission and 26% of 1,550 at discharge. Many patients did not meet the required combination of phenotypic and etiologic criteria for GLIM-defined malnutrition. CONCLUSION: Potential undernutrition, according to individual GLIM criteria, varied significantly at admission, with "low BMI" showing the lowest prevalence. This may indicate a substantial long-term nutritional risk among patients who appear well-nourished based on BMI. Furthermore, the lack of comprehensive data on individual criteria suggests that routinely collected clinical data may be insufficient for accurately assessing malnutrition.