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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Withholding or withdrawing artificial administration of food and fluids in nursing-home patients | | Author(s) | Bregje D Onwuteaka-Philipsen, H Roeline W Pasman, Aline Kruit |
| Journal title | Age and Ageing, vol 30, no 6, November 2001 |
| Pages | pp 459-466 |
| Keywords | Nutrition ; Feeding capacity ; Patients [nursing homes] ; Terminal care ; Netherlands. |
| Annotation | Artificial administration of food and fluids is one of the most frequently forgone treatments, especially among incompetent (but also among competent) nursing-home patients, generally those with a life expectancy of less than 1 month. It often occurs in combination with other end-of-life decisions, such as forgoing treatment with antibiotics. This article is based on results of a questionnaire to 74 Dutch nursing home physicians, regarding 6,060 people who had died in the Netherlands in 1995. A frequently mentioned consideration in forgoing artificial administration of food and fluids in incompetent patients is the low quality of the patient's life, while for the competent, most frequently mentioned is the patient's wishes. The decision to forgo artificial administration of food and fluids is almost always discussed with the patient, or if this is not possible, the patient's relatives. In general, nursing home physicians were of the opinion that forgoing artificial administration of food and fluids improved the patient's quality of dying. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-020121206 A |
| Classmark | CF: CA4: LHB:LF: LV: 76H |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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