AMDA: OK to comfort feed

Comfort feeding is acceptable. That is what authors of a new white paper argue.

When deciding whether to offer food and fluids to a resident with advanced dementia, clinicians have a greater responsibility to the resident in his or her current state than to those who originally drew up an advance directive that calls for food and drink to be withheld, they said.

Admittedly contrary to their “usual” views on the subject, stopping eating and drinking by advance directive is not identical to voluntary stoppage by the resident themselves, argue members of The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine, or AMDA.