The Assessment of the Risk of Malnutrition (Undernutrition) in Stroke Patients

Malnutrition is common in stroke patients, as it is associated with neurological and cognitive impairment as well as clinical outcomes. Nutritional screening is a process with which to categorize the risk of malnutrition (i.e., nutritional risk) based on validated tools/procedures, which need to be rapid, simple, cost-effective, and reliable in the clinical setting. This review focuses on the tools/procedures used in stroke patients to assess nutritional risk, with a particular focus on their relationships with patients’ clinical characteristics and outcomes. Different screening tools/procedures have been used in stroke patients, which have shown varying prevalence in terms of nutritional risk (higher in rehabilitation units) and significant relationships with clinical outcomes in the short- and long term, such as infection, disability, and mortality. Indeed, there have been few attempts to compare the usefulness and reliability of the different tools/procedures. More evidence is needed to identify appropriate approaches to assessing nutritional risk among stroke patients in the acute and sub-acute phase of disease or during rehabilitation; to evaluate the impact of nutritional treatment on the risk of malnutrition during hospital stay or rehabilitation unit; and to include nutritional screening in well-defined nutritional care protocols.