Substantial Decline in Tube Feeding for U.S. Nursing Home Residents with Advanced Dementia

During the past 20 years, research has failed to show benefits of tube feeding in patients with advanced dementia, and practice guidelines and professional medical groups have discouraged its use. In this study, researchers used a national nursing home database to examine annual feeding tube insertion rates during 2000 through 2014 among U.S. nursing home residents with advanced dementia. For each study year, investigators identified roughly 3500 to 7000 residents (mean age, 84; 76% white women) with severe Alzheimer disease or other dementias who were not dependent on assistance for eating and did not have feeding tubes at initial assessment but became feeding-dependent within 4 months.

The proportion of patients who received feeding tubes …