Effects of Nutritional Treatment on the Frequency of Pneumonia in Bedridden Patients Receiving Oral Care

Dietary patterns and micronutrients in respiratory infections including COVID-19: a narrative review

BACKGROUND

COVID-19 is a pandemic caused by nCoV-2019, a new beta-coronavirus from Wuhan, China, that mainly affects the respiratory system and can be modulated by nutrition.

METHODS

This review aims to summarize the current literature on the association between dietary intake and serum levels of micronutrients, malnutrition, and dietary patterns and respiratory infections, including flu, pneumonia, and acute respiratory syndrome, with a focus on COVID-19. We searched for relevant articles in various databases and selected those that met our inclusion criteria.

RESULTS

Some studies suggest that dietary patterns, malnutrition, and certain nutrients such as vitamins D, E, A, iron, zinc, selenium, magnesium, omega-3 fatty acids, and fiber may have a significant role in preventing respiratory diseases, alleviating symptoms, and lowering mortality rates. However, the evidence is not consistent and conclusive, and more research is needed to clarify the mechanisms and the optimal doses of these dietary components. The impact of omega-3 and fiber on respiratory diseases has been mainly studied in children and adults, respectively, and few studies have examined the effect of dietary components on COVID-19 prevention, with a greater focus on vitamin D.

CONCLUSION

This review highlights the potential of nutrition as a modifiable factor in the prevention and management of respiratory infections and suggests some directions for future research. However, it also acknowledges the limitations of the existing literature, such as the heterogeneity of the study designs, populations, interventions, and outcomes, and the difficulty of isolating the effects of single nutrients from the complex interactions of the whole diet.

Comprehensive Approaches to Aspiration Pneumonia and Dysphagia in the Elderly on the Disease Time-Axis

Pneumonia in the elderly has been increasing on an annual basis. To a greater or lesser extent, aspiration is a major contributor to the development of pneumonia in the elderly. Antimicrobials alone are not sufficient for the treatment of pneumonia, and the condition may become intractable or even recur repeatedly. In addition, some patients with pneumonia may have no problems with eating, while others are unable to receive the necessary nutrition due to severe dysphagia. It has recently been found that pneumonia decreases both the muscle mass and strength of the swallowing and respiratory muscles, a condition named pneumonia-associated sarcopenia. This contributes to a pathophysiological time-axis of aspiration pneumonia and dysphagia in the elderly, in which silent aspiration leads to the development of pneumonia, and further to dysphagia, malnutrition, and low immunity. Therefore, it is recommended that the treatment and prevention of developing pneumonia should also differ according to an individual’s placement in the disease time-axis. In particular, approaches for preventing aspiration based on scientific findings are able to be implemented at home.

Locational effects on oral microbiota among long-term care patients

Background

Dysbiosis of oral microbiota is the cause of many diseases related to oral and general health. However, few Asia-based studies have evaluated the role of oral microbiota in patients receiving long-term care. Thus, new indications are needed for early prevention and risk management based on information derived from the oral microbiota.

Methods

We used next-generation sequencing (NGS) to identify the oral bacterial composition and abundance in patients receiving long-term care: 20 from the outpatient department (OPD) and 20 home-care patients. Their microbial compositions, taxonomy, and alpha/beta diversity were characterized.

Results

Microbiota from the two groups showed different diversity and homogeneity, as well as distinct bacterial species. A more diverse and stable microbial population was observed among OPD patients. Our findings indicated that home-care patients had a higher risk of oral diseases due to the existence of dominant species and a less stable microbial community.

Conclusion

This work was the first in Taiwan to use NGS to investigate the oral microbiota of long-term care patients. Our study demonstrated the potential use of dominant bacterial species as biomarkers for the risk management of posttreatment complications.

[Analysis of changes in location before hospital admission, discharge destination and prognostic factors for the survival in hospitals with chronic-phase inpatients]

AIM

To clarify changes in location before hospital admission and discharge destination over the 10-year period of 2010 to 2020 and to identify prognostic factors associated with the survival in hospitals with chronic-phase inpatients.

METHODS

The subjects were patients newly admitted to 12 hospitals in 2010 and 2020. The age, sex, location before hospital admission, outcomes at 90 days after admission, discharge destination, and results of 6 biochemical tests at admission were evaluated. A survival analysis was performed for the age, sex, and biochemical tests at admission.

RESULTS

We analyzed 8007 newly hospitalized patients. Compared with 2010, there were more hospital admissions from acute-care hospitals and fewer admissions from long-term-care facilities in 2020. In addition, relative to 2010, regarding the outcomes at 90 days after admission, there were more discharges to home and residential facilities in 2020, fewer discharges to long-term-care facilities, and lower mortality rates. In the survival analysis, a multivariate analysis revealed that an elderly age, male sex, low albumin, high total cholesterol, high urea nitrogen, and low serum sodium were poor prognostic factors. These five variables were consistently poor prognostic factors in both 2010 and 2020, and Kaplan-Meier curves showed that the scores were dose-dependent prognostic factors for a poor survival.

CONCLUSIONS

The present analysis of pre-admission location and discharge destination in hospitals with chronic-phase patients revealed an elderly age, male sex, high urea nitrogen, low serum sodium, and low albumin at the time of admission to be strong predictors of poor outcomes in these patients.

Clinical Features and Risk Factors for Mortality in Hospitalized Older Adults with Pneumonia

Background

Pneumonia is a common disease among the aging population in Japan. Hence, it is important to elucidate the risks related to pneumonia mortality. Since Streptococcus pneumoniae is the most commonly observed pathogen, pneumococcal vaccination is recommended to older adults. Therefore, this study aimed to clarify the clinical features of pneumonia, including the status of pneumococcal vaccination, in hospitalized older adult patients in Japan.

Methods

This single-centered retrospective study was conducted by reviewing the medical records of all patients with acute pneumonia at Fujisawa City Hospital in Japan from April 2018 to March 2019. Patients were divided into two groups based on their history of pneumococcal vaccination. The primary endpoint was in-hospital mortality, while the secondary endpoint was risk factors associated with mortality.

Results

We included 93 patients with pneumonia in this retrospective study. Although the mortality rate was higher in the vaccinated group (15.8%) than in the unvaccinated group (9.1%), vaccination status was not identified as a significant risk factor for mortality after multivariable logistic regression (odds ratio: 2.71; 95% confidence interval: 0.667-11.02; p=0.16). In addition, the A-DROP score was identified as an independent risk factor (odds ratio: 2.64; 95% confidence interval: 1.22-5.72; p=0.008).

Conclusions

Our study suggested that the A-DROP score is a risk factor of mortality for pneumonia in older adults. In addition, pneumococcal vaccination history was related to increased mortality; however, the influence of the vaccination remains unclear because of the small sample size.

Cloud Computing into Respiratory Rehabilitation Training-Assisted Treatment of Patients with Pneumonia

In order to study the therapeutic effect of respiratory rehabilitation training on patients with pneumonia, this paper proposes an integrated adjuvant therapy program based on the cloud computing model. A total of 60 pneumonia patients admitted to Zhujiang Hospital of Southern Medical University from January to July 2020 were selected as the research objects and Southern Medical University pneumonia patients as the research object, to be evenly divided into two groups, each group of 30 people. The control group was treated with conventional anti-infection treatment, and the observation group was treated with supplementary respiratory rehabilitation training on the basis of conventional treatment. The therapeutic effects of the two groups were compared. The results showed that the absorption time of lung lesions was (9.17 ± 3.46) days in the observation group and (13.97 ± 3.07) days in the control group, and the difference between the two groups was statistically significant (t = 5.683, P < 0.001). Respiratory therapy based on the cloud computing model has the characteristics of integration and extensibility, which can be effectively applied to the treatment effect analysis of patients with pneumonia and is of great significance for the effective analysis of patients' blood gas indexes and lung function indexes.

Characteristics of aspiration pneumonia patients in acute care hospitals: A multicenter, retrospective survey in Northern Japan

BACKGROUND

Pneumonia is a common cause of illness and death of the elderly in Japan. Its prevalence is escalating globally with the aging of population. To describe the latest trends in pneumonia hospitalizations, especially aspiration pneumonia (AP) cases, we assessed the clinical records of pneumonia patients admitted to core acute care hospitals in Miyagi prefecture, Japan.

METHODS

A retrospective multi-institutional joint research was conducted for hospitalized pneumonia patients aged ≥20 years from January 2019 to December 2019. Clinical data of patients were collected from the medical records of eight acute care hospitals.

RESULTS

Out of the 1,800 patients included in this study, 79% of the hospitalized pneumonia patients were aged above 70 years. The most common age group was in the 80s. The ratio of AP to total pneumonia cases increased with age, and 692 out of 1,800 patients had AP. In univariate analysis, these patients had significantly older ages, lower body mass index (BMI), a lower ratio of normal diet intake and homestay before hospitalization, along with more AP recurrences and comorbidities. During hospitalization, AP patients had extended fasting periods, more swallowing assessments and interventions, longer hospitalization, and higher in-hospital mortality rate than non-AP patients. A total of 7% and 2% AP patients underwent video endoscopy and video fluorography respectively. In multivariate analysis, lower BMI, lower C-reactive protein, a lower ratio of homestay before hospitalization, a higher complication rate of cerebrovascular disease, dementia, and neuromuscular disease were noted as a characteristic of AP patients. Swallowing interventions were performed for 51% of the AP patients who had been hospitalized for more than two weeks. In univariate analysis, swallowing intervention improved in-hospital mortality. Lower AP recurrence before hospitalization and a lower ratio of homestay before hospitalization were indicated as characteristics of AP patients of the swallowing intervention group from multivariate analysis. Change in dietary pattern from normal to modified diet was observed more frequently in the swallowing intervention group.

CONCLUSION

AP accounts for 38.4% of all pneumonia cases in acute care hospitals in Northern Japan. The use of swallowing evaluations and interventions, which may reduce the risk of dysphagia and may associate with lowering mortality in AP patients, is still not widespread.