Nutritional care practices in ALS: perspectives of healthcare professionals and people with ALS

Abstract

Objective: To map nutritional care provided to people with ALS, PMA and PLS (pwALS) and identify barriers encountered by healthcare professionals and pwALS. Methods: Two online questionnaires, addressing current nutritional management of ALS in the Netherlands, were sent to healthcare professionals of the 36 certified ALS care teams and pwALS drawn from a population-based registry. Topics were: 1) contact between pwALS and their ALS care team, 2) monitoring nutritional status, 3) nutritional advice provided or received, and 4) satisfaction with current nutritional care and barriers encountered. Results: In total, 100 healthcare professionals and 372 pwALS completed the questionnaires. Dietitian responses (n = 36/100) showed that 28% utilized malnutrition screening tools and 17% measured body composition. Dietitians used different predictive equations to estimate energy and protein requirements. Patient responses showed that 50% had contact with a dietitian, 7% indicated body composition had been measured and 25% reported never being weighed or weighing themselves. Healthcare professionals and pwALS highlighted the need for comprehensive, up-to-date information on nutrition and ALS, national consensus on nutritional advice and monitoring methods, patient information material, training for healthcare professionals and personalized nutritional advice for pwALS. Conclusions: Practice variation was observed in the assessment and monitoring of nutritional status and the provision of nutritional advice. Suboptimal monitoring of nutritional status and estimation of nutritional requirements may result in delayed detection of malnutrition and inaccurate dietary recommendations. Further research and national consensus on monitoring methods and nutritional advice is required.