Practical aspects of patient monitoring during intravenous feeding

Abstract

Although intravenous nutrition has become simplified particularly with the advent of 3 litre bags and TPN is much more widely used, nevertheless there is a need to carefully monitor such patients. The degree of monitoring will of course, depend upon the seriousness of the underlying condition for which a patient is being treated, often at its most extreme in Intensive Care Units. Clearly, for patients on home TPN the degree and frequency of monitoring is much reduced and a similarity can be drawn here between the degree of observation required for patients being managed for acute renal failure and those maintained by regular haemodialysis in their own homes.