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Enuca / Enteralnutrition.net stores two enteral nutrition calculators - ESPEN calculator and DGEM calculator.   

The ESPEN calculator is based on the feeding requirements suggested by the European Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (ESPEN) guidelines on clinical nutrition in intensive care unit, published in 2018. Worldwide, there are many practices on estimating caloric needs of the patients who are critically ill and cannot meet their energy requirements on their own. Various countries and societies have published their own guidelines. At the moment, for European practitioners, the ESPEN guidelines are the most up-to-date. The American Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition has published their guidelines on critically ill patients‘ nutrition in 2016. Them, being older, have not been taken into account during the creation of the calculator.

The calculator estimates energy and protein requirements based on the demographic data, input by the user. The energy requirement is dependent on the patients‘ BMI. In cases of obesity, it uses the ideal body weight formula with a correction for the metabolic demands of adipose tissue and muscle, as defined in the part 3.22 of the ESPEN guidelines. Daily energy and protein goals per kilo is automatically based on the guidelines, yet the option to change it, as per users judgement, is left in cases where full enteral nutrition might not be indicated or higher energy requirements are expected.

The enteral nutrition calculator adjusts the dose of enteral nutrition whether or not supplemental amino acids are provided parenterally. Further, propofol, the most popular sedative in intensive care is dissolved in lipid solution, which, in turn, provides energy. Enteral nutrition requirements will change depending on the rate of infusion (for the record, various concentrations of the propofol have the same caloric value).

The DGEM calculator is based on the recommendations by the German Society for Nutritional Medicine (DGEM) on clinical nutrition in intensive care unit. Similarly to the ESPEN guidelines, they too were published in 2018. However, the recommendations are more nuanced and are dependent on multiple physiological variables, such as phosphate concentration or insulin requirements during the previous day. Unlike the ESPEN guidelines, less emphasis is put on protein intake and only energy needs are taken into account. For our users in Germany, we encourage them to use the DGEM calculator.

Finally, the user can choose the most popular enteral nutrition solutions available. The calculator will then estimated the necessary infusion rate depending on the nutritional value. If you want us to ADD MORE enteral nutrition options, please contact us here.

The Enteral nutrition calculator is fully automatic and has been tested multiple times. Nutritional value of the enteral nutrition solutions is based on the ones provided by the manufacturer. However we strongly recommend to doublecheck calculation results once in a while. Under no circumstances we can be held responsible for improper outcomes and/or damages.