What Is EmerAid^® Feline?

Emergency medicine often involves the care of feline patients that have “crashed”: Animals that are weak, depressed, malnourished, or severely debilitated. Nutrition is a vital part of critical care medicine and yet the process of digesting, absorbing, and assimilating nutrients often requires energy that the critical patient does not have to spare. EmerAid Intensive Care HDN provides critical-care nutrition for feline patients in the form of a semi-elemental diet. Nutrients are provided in a simplified form allowing the body to quickly digest and absorb the nutrients, thus sparing the patient’s already overtaxed resources.

The gastrointestinal tract is lined with cells called enterocytes, which help digest, absorb, and transport nutrients into the body. Vital nutrients absorbed by enterocytes include amino acids and peptides, carbohydrates (complex and simple saccharides), lipids, water, vitamins, and ions (or minerals). Enteral nutrition is preferred whenever possible, because enterocytes undergo atrophy without luminal nutrient stimulation. (Ford & Mazzafero, 2012)

By focusing on the nutritional needs of the enterocyte,EmerAid Intensive Care Diets scientifically provide the maximum amount of nutrition that can be absorbed with the least energy expenditure.

In critically ill patients, the body’s main goal is to support key organs like the heart, brain, liver, and lungs. Blood flow to the gastrointestinal tract is reduced thus slowing gastrointestinal motility. As enterocytes form a tight seal to protect the body from harmful bacteria or toxins, digestion and absorption of nutrients are similarly altered (Martindale, 2002). Unfortunately, these physiologic changes make it difficult for nutrients to be absorbed when the body needs nutrition the most. Consequently, debilitated patients benefit from a predigested or a semi-elemental diet.

Semi-elemental diets contain ingredients that are purified and hydrolyzed, combined with a small amount of complex highly digestible ingredients. Through an innovative balance between purified amino acids and hydrolyzed protein, EmerAid maintains an osmotic balance that minimizes the risk of diarrhea by preventing the loss of water and other vital nutrients from the gastrointestinal tract.

When a feline patient becomes debilitated, the body begins to catabolize its own muscle to survive. Loss of muscle means loss of protein, which increases the risk of post-operative infection and wound dehiscence and decreases wound healing. Protein malnutrition can also alter drug metabolism causing undesirable responses to medication. By providing amino acids, peptides, and L-carnitine, EmerAid is designed to not only build lean body mass, but also provides protein for a number of important metabolic processes (Chandra, 1997).

The feline patient should remain on EmerAid® Sustain® HDN Feline throughout the recovery process. Once the patient is doing well and has been medically cleared by their veterinarian, the diet can be gradually transitioned to the patients’ regular food as recommended by the veterinarian.

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