Revisión del manejo dietético y nutricional de los pacientes con esclerosis lateral amiotrófica

Abstract

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive degenerative disease that affects the central nervous system, which entails the gradual loss of the motor independence, the capacity to communicate orally, breathing (respiration) and swallowing (deglutition). The patient affected by ALS goes through different phases throughout the course of the disease, in each one of which he needs to be directed and guided to optimize the food intake through dietetic advice, nutritional supplementation and enteral tube feeding, preferably by gastrostomy, always taking into consideration the importance of making every possible effort to maintain the patient's independence and capacity to choose.

The objective of this review is to contribute to the updated knowledge on the dietetic and nutritional management of the patient affected by ALS, highlighting the importance of the dietician-nutritionist figure as a professional specialized in the subject and a member of any multi-disciplinary or inter-disciplinary treatment team focused on the patient with ALS to obtain an ideal treatment symptomatic of the problems related with nutritional deficits and dysphagia.