Question

A client is admitted to a long-term care facility with the diagnosis of weight loss secondary to anorexia. The primary health care provider prescribes an enteral tube feeding of a standard formula to run at 40 mL/hr. A nursing student is assigned to care for the client, and the nursing instructor asks the student to describe the nursing considerations related to a tube feeding. Which statement, if made by the student, indicates an understanding of this dietary treatment

Answer 1

The correct answer would be - Enteral feedings require the normal digestive capabilities of the gastrointestinal tract.

Step-by-step explanation:

Enteral nutrition includes ingestion of the nutrients by oral ingestion, gastrostomy tubes, nasogastric tube, or percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy. The normal gastrointestinal (GI) digestive capabilities are a must for such methods.

If the GI tract is not normal then other methods are use for nutrient delivery such as parenteral nutrition. The caloric value of most standard enteral feeding formulas is 1 to 2 calories/mL.