Patients with brain disorder manifest hypermetabolism, increased energy expenditure, and increased protein loss. Nutritional support can prevent loss of immunocompetence, and can decrease morbidity and mortality associated with brain disorder. Thus, we aimed to determine the nutritional status by measuring body mass index (BMI) in patients with brain disorder during the first 6 months and identify factors related to malnutrition in this study.

We enrolled 244 patients from January 2008 to December 2009. The patients were classified into two groups: BMI under 18.5 were categorized as malnourished, while BMI over 18.5 as not malnourished. Extracted data includes demographic characteristics, type of brain disorder, functional independence measure (FIM) and Korea mini-mental status exam (K-MMSE) scores, history of diabetes mellitus (DM), and laboratory data. Feeding method was classified into oral and enteral tube feeding.

The prevalence of malnourished patients was 13.1% (32 out of 244 patients). There was significant difference of total lymphocyte count (TLC) between the two groups. And there was no significant difference of correlation in other parameters. Analysis of feeding method showed that 11.4% of oral feeding patients were malnourished, compared to 17.4% of tube feeding patients who were categorized as malnourished. The tube feeding group tends to be more malnourished.

The results of this study can be a guide for active rehabilitation of patients with brain disorder, and further studies regarding functional outcome and complications related to early nutritional status is needed.