Good Example Of Critical Thinking On PRE-Class Review Questions

Question 6, page 134.

6) Identify and explain the four components of the NCP (Nutrition Care Process)
1) Nutrition Assessment: The physical fitness of a person depends to a great extent on the nature of his/her diet. To evaluate and design a customised diet plan is the biggest challenge that a dietician faces. The dietician takes into account the daily intake of a client; the number of meals in day and the total calorie intake. Nutrition assessment can be defined as a systematic method to collect and evaluate information from diverse sources that allow the registered dieticians to evaluate the nutrition status of an individual. A registered dietician uses critical thinking skills in the nutrition assessment to determine how much data from a given category is necessary to rule in or rule out a given nutrition diagnosis.
2) Nutrition Diagnosis: After assessing a client’s nutrition level, Nutrition diagnosis is the second component of the NCP. The registered dietician identifies and labels a specific nutrition diagnosis that he/she is responsible for treating. The dietician might indentify the harmful components in the diet like extra carbohydrates, sugar and caffeine. He/ She will plan her diet plan after analysing these. Standardized language for the NCP has been developed to be used in identifying a nutrition diagnosis. A nutrition diagnosis may currently exist or might be evaluated according to a problem. It is important to note that the nutrition diagnosis is not a medical diagnosis. The nutrition diagnosis statement should be clear, concise and related to one problem; it should be based on reliable and accurately assessed data. The daily nutrition data provided by the client should be reliable and clear.
3) Intervention: A nutritional intervention is a planned and purposeful action by the registered dietician. It is the next step in NCP that is focused on perfecting the cause of the nutrition diagnosis. The two components of the intervention are planning and implementation. The planning phase of the nutrition intervention involves prioritizing the diagnosis, searching for evidence to support the planned intervention and having a discussion with the client/patient. At times the client might be fighting obesity or some other issue because of some stress. In this situation the dietician has to consult other health-care professionals too for determining the nutrition prescription, agreeing on outcome goals, and estimating the timing and frequency of interventions. In case of female patients a gynaecologist might have to be consulted before chalking out a particular diet plan. Implementation of the intervention includes the intervention itself, but also documentation, discussion, follow-up and adjustments to the intervention plan as needed. It is here that communication plays a very vital role.
4) Monitoring and Evaluation: The final step in the NCP is monitoring and evaluating the outcomes of a given course of action associated with a nutrition diagnosis. Outcomes indicators must be selected carefully so that they accurately reflect the outcome of the service provided and are meaningful to those involved in the service. The feasibility and results of a diet pan is evaluated by its results seen by the client. For this the client needs to visit the dieticians at frequent intervals just for follow ups .Although many clinicians use biochemical measures as indicators of adequacy of feeding, third-party payers might be more interested in decreased length of stay as an indicator of adequacy of nutrition. The nutrition support provided by the registered dietician should evaluate proposed outcome measures carefully.