Finally! Somebody else who's familiar with Alzheimer's disease. For those of you who aren't familiar with the disease, please take note of the next to the last paragraph in this article which contains a quote from a spokesman for the Alzheimer's Association.
Wednesday October 13 1:14 AM ET
By BRENDA C. COLEMAN AP Medical Writer
FEEDING TUBES HARM
The authors found no evidence to support the reasons usually given for using the tubes: preventing early death from malnutrition, averting lung infections caused by inhaling food, and relieving suffering.
CHICAGO (AP) - In a study that could have broad implications for millions of Americans, researchers reported today that feeding tubes for mentally incapacitated patients may instead cause problems they are meant to prevent, including lung infections and early death.
The study may prove important for the more than 4 million Americans who have Alzheimer's disease and those who care for them. The illness, the leading cause of dementia, is expected to become more widespread as the U.S. population ages.
Unlike feeding tubes, careful hand-feeding lets demented patients live as long as other nursing home patients, the authors concluded.
That runs contrary to some nursing home practices and Medicare reimbursement guidelines for demented patients, Alzheimer's advocates say.
``The widespread practice of tube feeding should be carefully reconsidered, and we believe that for severely demented patients, the practice should be discouraged,'' wrote the study's lead author, Dr. Thomas Finucane, an associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University.
The authors reviewed more than six dozen medical studies about feeding tubes published over the past 33 years. Their findings appear in today's Journal of the American Medical Association.
Feeding tubes, typically inserted through the nose or abdomen, are used in roughly 10 percent of dementia patients in nursing homes nationwide, though the practice varies widely, said Dr. Colleen Christmas, a co-author.
The authors found no evidence to support the reasons usually given for using the tubes: preventing early death from malnutrition, averting lung infections caused by inhaling food, and relieving suffering.
On the contrary, tube-fed patients typically died within a year, got higher rates of lung infections and became so agitated that they required restraint or sedation, studies showed.
Researchers, however, found little data that directly compared tube-feeding to hand-feeding.
Experts on dementia who were not involved in the review praised it as an important contribution toward overturning misconceptions.
``The benefit of this article is that it's starting to really question this almost knee-jerk response: `The person's not eating, therefore we must institute tube-feeding,''' said Dr. Robert McCann, chief of medicine at Highland Hospital, an affiliate of the University of Rochester in Rochester, N.Y.
He supported the conclusion that hand-feeding is a better alternative than feeding tubes, even if it is more time-consuming.
Advanced dementia is a terminal illness that robs people of mental abilities such as the memory of how to chew and swallow, and some suggest it is better to let such a patient go without food or water.
``Our position is that it is ethically permissible at any point, but particularly in the advanced stages of dementia, to withdraw or withhold artificial food and hydration,'' said Stephen McConnell of the Alzheimer's Association. He said the policy dates back eight or nine years.
A nursing home industry spokesman said doctors, not administrators, decide who gets a feeding tube. Also, it is often requested by a patient's family, said Tom Burke, a spokesman for the American Health Care Association, which represents 11,000 nursing homes nationwide.
With nearly 5 million sufferer's of Alzheimer's disease in the U.S., what are the odds that someone else's loved one, in the same hospice with Terri, is also dying of hunger & thirst? All these protesters have done is heap burning coals on the heads of people who are only trying to do what is right & loving & merciful for their family member. To be made to walk the gauntlet of people who would call them murderers is the height of inhumanity.
I didn't know there was any question this was being done. Much of the anger is that it is being brought to the public's attention.
This hospice is not just taking in Terminally ill patients and allowing them to die a graceful death with care and kindliness.
They have had 150 plus patients MIS-diagnosed as terminally ill, and put them in the hospice with minimal care, and allowed them to 'die naturally' too.
The Dept of Health and Human Services is claiming $14million in scammed Medicare funds must be returned by the Hospice.
It is a deathcamp for profit, and they have been trying to get a precendence so they can expand their 'clientele'.