Your background is not accurate, and the answer is yes.
Most die from pneumonia. By the time the feeding tubes go in they are in a very weakened state already.
The analogy to Terri Schindler is weak. Very different circumstances.
Still, the issue is do we face up that we commit euthanasia or not?
If so, just do a lethal injection.
I will answer, as well as I can, your questions posed in post #53....I have worked in nursing homes for many, many years, and have asked primarily to work with the Alzheimers patients, as I just have a real love for them, and great sympathy for the families dealing with their Alzheimers love one(my own mother died at home, with Alzheimers, so I just really do feel a connection with these particular patients and their families)....
Most of the Alzheimers patients in the early stages, are well able to feed themselves, and we escort these patients to the dining room, where they are served a tray, they sit at small tables of 4 where they are able to converse with the other patients...those who seem to be more in middle stages of Alzheimers, can eat, but are not able to do it for themselves...so we have to feed them...usually there are four Alzheimers patients to a table, with a nurse or an aide caring for two patients at once, feeding one, then the other...most of these patients will eat and drink, but only with direct assistance...
Those Alzheimers patients in later or last stages are the most difficult to feed...many of them are on pureed food, simply because they resist completely if you try to feed them regular food...but they do seem to be more willing to eat pureed food...
And in the very last stages, we do make all attempts to feed them, but we NEVER force them to eat...forcing them, would probably result in aspirate pneumonia...so they brought to the dining room, if they can be, and offered food...if they refuse to eat anything at any one meal, attempts are made at the next meal, and the meal after that, and so on...they are encouraged to eat, for three meals a day, and often encouraged to take the twice daily offered snacks...they may refuse to eat one or two meals, and then will willingly eat the third meal of the day...there is great variance...
All the Alzheimers patients have a special chart provided in the dining room...and every patient is charted on for every meal...whether they ate anything, how much they ate of everything on their tray, whether they refused to eat, what they refused to eat...it is all charted and kept track off...they are also weighed at least once a week...
Strict attention is paid to their weight gain, their weight loss, and their food and fluid intake...
When a patient continuously refuses to eat, the family is informed...any change in weight(allowing for normal variance) is noted, and the family is informed of this...
All families are made aware of having a feeding tube put in...My own personal experience has been, that most families, that have an Alzheimers patient in the last stages, who refuses to eat or drink, rarely request the feeding tube...there are some who do request the feeding tube, and their Alzheimers love one has one put in, and they receive their nutrition this way...I have never seen a feeding tube removed once it was put in...
Hope this provides some small answers to your post...
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.