Nutritional physical examination

historical, methodological and applied approach

Abstract

The historical interest in the use of physical evaluation skills in clinical settings gained new notoriety at the end of the 20th century with evidence that patients in intensive care units experienced increased morbidity and mortality related to poor nutritional status before and/or during their admission. This awareness of the adverse effects of malnutrition led to the need for screening and evaluation tools to identify nutritional risk. no clinical finding of EFN should be considered a diagnosis per se. It is academic, scientific and clinical consensus that its results should be interpreted as suggestive, being crucial to consider the other methods of clinical evaluation of the patient's nutritional status for the correct global nutritional diagnosis. However, the systematic and periodic repetition of the test may help to follow the evolution of the individual's nutritional status, especially in the long term. In summary, although it requires specialized training and continuous practice of the evaluator and/or the team – in addition to requiring complementary nutritional information – the physical nutritional examination can still be considered an effective adjuvant method in the clinical evaluation of the patient’s nutritional status.