Abstract
Malnutrition is a pathological condition caused by a lack of nutrients or their unbalanced intake. The advanced stages of the disorders caused by a simultaneous lack of both energy and proteins are termed cachexia.
Malnutrition is frequent in patients in out-patient and home care, but it often develops as late as in the course of hospitalization, or it intensifies during hospitalization. There is an alarming finding that in 3-5 % of in-patients malnutrition is so serious that, if not intensively treated by nutritional support, it results in the patient's death.
This means malnutrition as the principal diagnosis, though for a much larger number of patients (approximately 45 %) malnutrition is not a direct cause of death, but it endangers the patient by a high incidence of complications, which prolong hospitalization, increase the costs of treatment, and in an indirect way increase the death-rate in hospitals.