Clinical Nutrition Week - Vancouver, B.C.

Dr. Mark DeLegge was in Vancouver, Canada this past week for the annual Clinical Nutrition Week conference. Participants were from the United States, Canada, South America, Southeast Asia, Europe and Australia. As a member of the Board of Directors for the American Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (ASPEN), Dr. DeLegge noted the outstanding science and clinical work presented at the conference. Major strides were made in the creation of a database that will track all home parenteral nutrition patients in the United States and to ultimately partner with other international physicians and countries. In addition, ASPEN will be supporting collaboration with the European Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (ESPEN) to conduct yearly surveys focused on the state of nutrition and nutrition interventions in our hospitals, sub-acute care facilities and long-term care facilities.

Dr. DeLegge serves as a board member on the Rhoads Research Foundation, a board dedicated to increasing funding for nutrition-based research. This board met in Vancouver and was successful in obtaining further long-term commitments from corporate and private donors.

While in Vancouver, Dr. DeLegge participated in a roundtable discussion with a number of patients receiving tube-feeding at home and their families. He was able to problem-solve some issues they were having and was also able to learn more about what impact tube-feeding has on patients who are receiving enteral nutrition at home. He has received an award in the past from the Oley Foundation, a support group for home parenteral and enteral nutrition patients, for “extreme volunteerism.”

Dr. DeLegge was also a speaker at the conference and addressed the topic of gastrointestinal intolerance during tube feeding. This is a common problem and can result in patients not receiving adequate nutrition at home. This lecture was well received by a number of U.S., Canadian and international clinicians and was noted by a few at the conference as being “exceptional.”

Next year’s Clinical Nutrition Week is in Orlando, Fla. DeLegge Medical has made plans to be there with their new “enteral access” line.