Nutritional Recovery Syndrome

|

The nutritional recovery syndrome, sometimes called the refeeding syndrome, results from overly aggressively feeding patients who are severely malnourished or who haven't eaten in a long period of time. Refeeding a starved person results in a shift of potassium and phosphorus into the body's cells for ATP production, which can result in electrolyte imbalance. Therefore, refeeding a severely malnourished patient should occur gradually, and the patient should be monitored closely.

Characteristics of the nutritional recovery syndrome include: hypophosphatemia hypokalemia lactose intolerance