Nutritional Nursing and Rehabilitation in Hospital and Long-Term Care Settings
A special issue of Nutrients (ISSN 2072-6643). This special issue belongs to the section "Clinical Nutrition".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 March 2026
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Malnutrition remains a critical yet underprioritized challenge across healthcare systems, disproportionately affecting vulnerable patient populations in both acute and long-term care settings. Older adults and those with cognitive impairments face particularly complex nutritional risks due to the intersection of physiological aging processes, disease-related metabolic demands, and functional eating difficulties. The hospital environment often fails to support optimal nutritional intake due to factors like interrupted mealtimes, inappropriate food textures, and a lack of feeding assistance, while nursing homes struggle with staffing constraints and inadequate mealtime environments. These systemic challenges are compounded for patients with dementia, who experience unique barriers including swallowing disorders, appetite changes, and behavioral symptoms that disrupt eating.
Current nutritional care models frequently adopt reductionist approaches that overlook the psychosocial dimensions of eating and fail to integrate rehabilitation principles with clinical nutrition practice. Emerging evidence suggests that comprehensive, person-centered strategies incorporating environmental modifications, staff training, and therapeutic diets could significantly improve outcomes, yet implementation remains inconsistent.
This Special Issue will highlight innovative, evidence-based solutions to transform nutritional care delivery across the healthcare continuum. It will explore the critical intersection of clinical nutrition, nursing care, and rehabilitation strategies in hospital and long-term care settings. While malnutrition remains a persistent challenge affecting patient recovery and quality of life, we seek to move beyond simply identifying risk factors to showcase effective, innovative solutions.
We welcome contributions that
- Present evidence-based nutritional interventions that have demonstrated measurable improvements in patient outcomes;
- Highlight successful rehabilitation nutrition programs integrating dietary management with physical therapy;
- Examine novel technologies (e.g., AI meal monitoring and smart utensils) enhancing nutritional care;
- Evaluate staff training programs that improved mealtime assistance and nutritional monitoring;
- Showcase multidisciplinary care models bridging dietetics, nursing, and rehabilitation;
- Analyze policy implementations that successfully address nutritional care standards.
Special consideration will be given to
- Studies quantifying the clinical outcomes of nutritional interventions;
- Real-world case studies of implemented programs;
- Cost–benefit analyses of different nutritional care approaches;
- Innovative solutions addressing dementia-related eating challenges.
Dr. Hui Chen (Rita) Chang
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Nutrients is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- clinical nutrition interventions
- rehabilitation nutrition
- malnutrition management
- nursing care strategies
- multidisciplinary approaches
- dementia nutrition
- nutritional technology
- care quality standards
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