The tubes occasionally leak or become blocked or infected, necessitating hospitalizations; they can cause nausea, vomiting or diarrhea. Patients with advanced dementia can’t understand what’s going on, so “they tend to get agitated and try to pull out the tubes,” Dr. Mitchell said, which in turn leads to the use of restraints or psychotropic drugs.
Families often fear that without artificial nutrition and hydration, their relatives will suffer from hunger or thirst. But when researchers talked to cancer patients who were close to death but lucid, Dr. Mitchell said, they didn’t describe painful sensations.
Those problems can happen but don’t always and are realtively easily addressable.
The second part of tour comment is not relevant as this is not a close to death issue, but an issue of not being able to take nutrition by mouth without aspiration and subsequent bouts of pneumonia.
Dehydration equals pain. Hydration is not facilitated w/a g-tube. You are projecting someone else’s portrayal on Casey Kasem. Every person is different and you cannot assess Casey Kasem and dehydration equals pain.