Parenteral feeding of cats and dogs

Abstract

Inadequate diet combined with disease, injury or stress increases the metaobolic activity of patients to above the normal activity at rest. Sick or injured patients that are incapable of the intake of food and use nutritive matter through the digestive tract are indicated for parenteral feeding. Prior to the application of parenteral nutrition itself, it is necessary to carry out a series of clinical and laboratory analyses in order to determine which patients should actually be treated in this way. In order to determine the parenteral nutritive requirements, the veterinarian must assess the nutritive requirements of the patient, and on these grounds determine the type of solution that will be applied. It is very difficult to determine the precise requirements, so that certain relations are used in practice between the individual nutritive components that are based on the average requirements of these animal species. For parenteral nutrition, solutions are applied that are based on dextrose or glucose, amino acids, lipids, vitamins, micro and macro elements. In the course of the application of parenteral feeding, constant monitoring of the patient is necessary in the form of clinical examinations and laboratory tests.

Keywords

• parenteral feeding
• dog
• cat
• metabolic requirements