PD1000 - NUTRITION IS THE MISSION: A PRACTICAL APPROACH TO TRANSFER THEORY INTO CLINICAL PRACTICE FOR EARLY GERIATRIC REHABILITATION NATIONWIDE

PD1000

NUTRITION IS THE MISSION: A PRACTICAL APPROACH TO TRANSFER THEORY INTO CLINICAL PRACTICE FOR EARLY GERIATRIC REHABILITATION NATIONWIDE

T. M. Douchi^1,*, R. Fliedner¹, K. Schütz¹, M. Valentová¹

¹Department of Geriatrics, University Medical Center, Göttingen, Germany

Rationale: With reported prevalence rates often exceeding 50 %, geriatric patients represent the highest-risk group for malnutrition in hospital settings, associated with increased mortality, adverse events and longer hospital stays. To bill for Early Geriatric Rehabilitation (OPS 8-550), an interdisciplinary team including neuropsychology, physical, occupational and speech and language therapy (including dysphagia) is mandatory. Nutritional therapy is not relevant for billing so far. We advocate for recognition as a fifth core discipline and developed an evidence-based proposal to expand the code.

Methods: An interprofessional team (geriatricians, nutrition scientist, nutritional medicine expert) has been developing the proposal since August 2025. The EFFORT-study, its sub-analyses and the ESPEN/DGEM-Guidelines provided the main data on the effects of individualized nutrition support and practical recommendations. The OPS 8-550 and the non-billable code for Complex Nutritional Therapy (OPS 8-98j) served as legal reference frameworks.

Results: The proposal delivers a detailed plan for the implementation of nutritional therapy into Early Geriatric Rehabilitation. It defines its scope of practice and standardized assessment and diagnosis, interventional nutrition strategies, patient and caregiver counseling as well as working guidelines within the interdisciplinary team. Potential cost-effectiveness is described.

Conclusion: This project is a much (more) needed translation into action of existing evidence gained in the past years. It has the potential to improve the geriatric patients’ clinical outcomes within an interdisciplinary system that, unlike most other clinical departments, already provides many important structural elements for this approach and could serve as a model for improving the integration of nutritional therapy into geriatric care across Europe. 

Disclosure of Interest: None declared