Force-Feeding: Cruel at Guantánamo, but O.K. for Our Parents

By Haider Javed Warraich, New York Times Nov. 24, 2015

Many late-stage dementia patients develop difficulties in swallowing and frequently aspirate food or other stomach contents into their lungs, developing pneumonia.

“Study after study, however, has shown that tube feeding doesn’t provide any benefit compared with feeding these patients by hand, which is more labor-intensive but much better for the patients. It doesn’t improve survival, reduce infections, reduce the incidence of aspiration pneumonia or improve patients’ nutritional status over those who are hand fed or even over patients not fed at all.”

Read more about Tube Feeding Dementia Patients.