Clinical assessment of muscle condition in cats

Muscle tissue is constantly undergoing both protein synthesis and protein breakdown, in both health and disease states. The balance between synthesis and breakdown processes determines whether...

Assisted feeding techniques in hospitalised felines

Domestic felines require specific dietary components in comparison to domestic canines. Felines are obligate carnivores; a term which defines their inability to synthesise vitamin A, arachidonic acid...

Nutrition in critical care

Nutrition is described as the processes of food utilisation by a plant or animal (Merriam-Webster, 2020). The terms macro and micronutrients refer to the volume of each that is required....

Don't forget the foal: the nursing requirements of hospitalised foals when the mare is the primary patient

Admitting a mare for treatment at an equine hospital when she has a foal at foot is not comparable to admitting an adult horse with a companion. The foal, even though it is not the primary patient,...

How to place commonly used feeding tubes in dogs and cats

NO and NG tubes provide short-term enteral nutritional support, generally for up to 5 to 10 days, and are suitable for use in patients for whom sedation or general anaesthesia is contraindicated...

Early enteral nutrition in puppies with parvovirus enteritis

In CPV enteritis, infection with parvovirus is acquired by the faecal-oral route of transmission (Goddard and Leisewitz, 2010). By the third to fifth day viraemia is marked, with CPV preferentially...

A practical approach to caring for patients with appetite reduction

Appetite can be adversely affected when circumstances interfere with the initiation of food intake (for example in the case of facial trauma or dental disease), or act to promote negative stimuli...