If the patient was bedridden with little physical therapy or resistance exercise, there has likely been significant loss of muscle mass. Even 1 week of complete bed rest in a healthy male volunteer can be associated with up to 4% loss of lean tissue, due to reduced protein synthesis.

If the patient is ill (catabolic), has fever, is on corticosteroids, nitrogen loss/muscle mass loss can be significantly accelerated and is an important reason that the professional should consider these variables in their assessment of the patient’s metabolic stressors. These are often overlooked and is the reason that these variables are included in the professional component of the PG-SGA© and the Pt-Global app/web tool©.