by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Oct 31, 2024 | Fight the Good Fight, Nutrition & Wound Healing
Chu and colleagues have published a wonderful article in Advances in Skin & Wound Care, High-Quality Dietary Protein: The Key to Healthy Granulation Tissue – available open access. It contains a wealth of scientific and practical information emphasizing that...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 18, 2022 | Nutrition & Wound Healing
Check out this presentation on my process of screening for malnutrition among patients with chronic wounds, and the additional evidence supporting a nutritional algorithm for outpatient wound centers. I reviewed two case study examples of limb salvage that...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Oct 20, 2021 | Nutrition & Wound Healing
Please join me on November 4, 2021 from 3:00 – 4:00 PM ET for a webinar entitled “Immunonutrition and Wounds.” Objectives: Describe wound prevalence and cost among Medicare beneficiaries State the specialized nutritional recommendations from...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 13, 2021 | Nutrition & Wound Healing
I am ashamed of how many years it took for me to get serious about the impact of nutritional deficits in chronic wounds, about consistently performing nutritional screening, and about improving patient nutritional status. There are 3 main barriers: Doctors don’t...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 12, 2021 | Nutrition & Wound Healing
I have previously discussed the fact that my electronic health record (EHR) incorporated the Nestle Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) so that it only takes me a few seconds to do a proper nutritional screen and it can be done while I’m in the room with the patient....
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jun 30, 2021 | Nutrition & Wound Healing
Recently we talked about the importance of nutritional assessment in patients with wounds and ulcers. I’ve posted a few of the countless cases I’ve seen in which improved nutrition (usually with some type of oral nutritional supplement) is what made the difference. I...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | May 19, 2021 | Nutrition & Wound Healing, PAD Hall of Shame
This is a retired physician in his 90’s whose mind is as sharp as a tack. He’s got congestive heart failure (CHF) and leg edema so severe that his skin is splitting open. He’s a chair sleeper in part because he has orthopnea (shortness of breath lying down), but also...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | May 11, 2021 | Fight the Good Fight, Nutrition & Wound Healing
This is a man in his mid-eighties with severe peripheral edema and a nasty looking leg ulcer that’s been present for about 2 months. His edema began 2 years ago, some weeks after his wife died. It turns out that he’s lost at least 20 lbs. over the past year. When I...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | May 7, 2021 | Nutrition & Wound Healing
This is a 61-year-old woman with Lupus who presented with huge non-healing ulcers on both knees, thought to be related to vasculitis. However, her BMI (Body Mass Index) is only 13.8 — which is lower than patients I treated in Haiti. She weighs only 83 lbs. None...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Apr 30, 2021 | Do the Right Thing: Thoughts on Quality, Fight the Good Fight, Nutrition & Wound Healing
This is a 35 y.o. woman with type 1 Diabetes, liver disease and end stage renal disease on home peritoneal dialysis after failed renal and liver transplants. She also has other wounds on her body due to pressure and ischemia. The abdominal wound had been present for 9...
