Enteral nutrition in patients with severe traumatic brain injury: reasons for intolerance and medical management

Abstract

Approximately, 50% of patients with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) exhibit intolerance to enteral nutrition (EN). This intolerance hampers the survival and rehabilitation of this subpopulation to a great extent, and poses various difficulties for clinicians due to its complex underlying mechanisms. This review discusses the possible reasons for intolerance to EN following severe TBI, current trends in medical management, as well as other related issues that are experienced by many clinicians.

Key words:

• Severe traumatic brain injury
• enteral nutrition
• intolerance
• reasons
• management

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Mr. David Pickles, Mr. Liying Sun, Mr. Lawrence Hwang, and Ms. You Wu for their great editing effort and the editor in chief, the anonymous referees, and Ms. Xiaoyan Yu for their insightful and constructive comments and suggestions that have led to an improved version of this paper.