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Dementi Legal And Ethical Implications

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Dementia is an umbrella term for brain disorders that affect memory, thinking and communication. In the US alone about 5.4 million people have been diagnosed with a form of dementia of which 96% are individuals over the age of 65.
Advanced dementia can lead to people having a severe cognitive decline and can affect activities of daily living. Because there is no cure for dementia it is considered a terminal illness. Many patients living with advanced dementia may have not have any desire to eat or have difficulty eating and experience dysphagia and weight loss. To combat the rapid weight loss, tube feeding is used as a common practice.
There is legal and ethical controversy regarding the use of artificial methods of feeding. Ethical implications include arguments of withholding or removing tube feedings can be viewed as euthanasia or can it be beneficial to the patient or a burden. Legal implications include if advance directives are not present is it the patient’s wish to be placed on a feeding tube? To prevent legal liability or penalties many nursing homes religiously initiate tube feedings to patients with dementia who stop eating to prevent weight loss Feeding tubes are placed to provide nutrition to these patients but can lead to a lot of complications like aspiration pneumonia, pressure ulcers. (Sheiman). Nursing homes may also push for the placement of tube feeding because of monetary reimbursement that is greater than the patients who are non-tube fed.
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