WSAVA Nutrition Guidelines and Toolkit

Incorporating nutritional assessment into patient care is critical for maintaining pets' health and their response to disease and injury. The positive impact of nutrition on health and recovery from disease or injury is well established. Appropriate feeding throughout all life stages can help prevent diet-associated diseases, as well as assist in the management of other diseases, for example, foods formulated for cats and dogs with chronic kidney disease have been shown to provide significant benefits in wellbeing and length of life.
The World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA) has established an initiative for nutritional assessment to be the “5th vital sign” or 5th vital assessment (V5 or 5VA) after temperature, pulse, respiration and pain assessment. Incorporating the screening evaluation as described in these guidelines as the fifth vital assessment in the standard history taking and physical examination requires little additional time and no cost. Incorporating nutritional assessment and recommendations into the care of small animals also helps develop the partnership between the owner and veterinary healthcare team. Surveys show that owners have a strong desire to have information on nutrition and diet provided by the veterinary healthcare team.
The American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) has set up Global Nutrition Guidelines1 for nutritional evaluation which have been published in the Journal of Small Animal Practice2 . Following the launch of the WSAVA’s Global Nutrition Guidelines in 2011, the Global Nutrition Committee (GNC) developed a suite of “tools”3 . These include practical aids for the veterinary healthcare team for making nutritional assessment and recommendations, and include a diet history form, hospitalized patient feeding guide, body condition score charts, muscle condition score chart and calorie recommendations for adult dogs and cats, and a nutritional assessment check sheet, which is filled out both by the owner and the health care team. […]