Against the Flow: Tube Feeding and Survival in Patients with Dementia

During the past several years, arti-cles have appeared in almost every major medical journal reviewing the use of enteral feeding tubes in patients with dementia.1–10 These articles have uniformly concluded that there is little evidence demented patients benefit from enteral feeds and, in fact, tube feedings may actually harm such patients. Indeed, some authors have stated that the stan-dard of care should now be to withhold tube feedings in the setting of late stage dementia.2–4 Despite these conclusions, enteral feeding of demented patients contin-ues, and many physicians and caregiv-ers still favor the use of feeding tube