AMDA resolution calls for ‘comfort feeding’ of certain residents with dementia

Members of AMDA–The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine should adopt a policy of “comfort feeding” for certain residents with dementia rather than honor advance directives that indicate criteria that otherwise would trigger an order to stop feeding them, recommends a resolution passed by the AMDA House of Delegates during the organization’s annual conference in Atlanta.

“We realize that many people will have a negative reaction to this,” James Wright, M.D., Ph.D., CMD, author of the resolution and vice chair of the AMDA Ethics Committee, told McKnight’s Senior Living.“Given the fact that healthcare providers typically view an advance directive as inviolable, this is a departure from our usual practice.”