Explain how the four assessment methods are used to detect energy and nutrient deficiencies and excesses.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

To prepare a nutrition assessment, a registered dietitian (or registered dietitian
nutritionist), dietetic technician registered, or other trained health-care
professional uses:
Historical information
Anthropometric measurements
Physical examinations
Laboratory tests
One step in evaluating nutrition status is to obtain information about a person’s
history with respect to health status, socioeconomic status, drug use, and diet.
The health history reflects a person’s medical record and may reveal a disease
that interferes with the person’s ability to eat or the body’s use of nutrients. The
person’s family history of major diseases is also noteworthy, especially for
conditions such as heart disease that have a genetic tendency to run in families.
Economic circumstances may show a financial inability to buy foods or
inadequate kitchen facilities in which to prepare them. Social factors such as
marital status, ethnic background, and educational level also influence food
choices and nutrition status. A drug history, including all prescribed and over-
the-counter medications, may highlight possible interactions that lead to nutrient
deficiencies.
A second technique that may help to reveal nutrition problems is taking
anthropometric measures such as height and weight. The assessor compares a
person’s measurements with standards specific for gender and age or with
previous measures on the same individual.
A third nutrition assessment technique is a physical examination looking for
clues to poor nutrition status. Visual inspection of the hair, eyes, skin, posture,
tongue, and fingernails can provide such clues. In addition, information gathered
from an interview can help identify symptoms. The examination requires skill
because many physical signs and symptoms reflect more than one nutrient
deficiency or toxicity—or even non-nutrition conditions. Like the other
assessment techniques, a physical examination alone does not yield firm
conclusions. Instead, physical examinations reveal possible imbalances that
must be confirmed by other assessment techniques, or they confirm results
from other assessment measures.
A fourth way to detect a developing deficiency, imbalance, or toxicity is to take
samples of blood or urine, analyze them in the laboratory, and compare the
results with normal values for a similar population. Laboratory tests are most
useful in uncovering early signs of malnutrition before symptoms appear. In
addition, they can confirm suspicions raised by other assessment methods.