Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

CiteULike is a free service for managing and discovering scholarly references - click here to get started.

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (OnlineFirst PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Geppert, C. M. A.
Right arrow Articles by Druyan, M. E.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Geppert, C. M. A.
Right arrow Articles by Druyan, M. E.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Article

Ethical Issues in Artificial Nutrition and Hydration: A Review

Cynthia M. A. Geppert, MD, PhD, MPH, FAPM1*, Maria R. Andrews, MS, RD, FADA, FACHE2, and Mary Ellen Druyan, PhD, MPH, RD, CNS, FACN3

1 New Mexico Veteran’s Affairs Health Care System; University of New Mexico School of Medicine
2 El Paso VA Health Care System
3 Broad Spectrum Communications

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ethicdoc{at}comcast.net.


  Abstract
Healthcare professionals often face clinical and ethical challenges when charged with making decisions related to provision or lack of provision of artificial nutrition and hydration. The intent of this review is to supply a framework of clinical practices, ethical principles, legal precedents, and professional guidelines that will impart information and can assist decision making regarding artificial nutrition and hydration. Comprehensive understanding of the theory and practice of informed consent for competent adults, decisionally incompetent adults, and minors is necessary for making valid clinical judgments and for guiding patients and their families or surrogates in choosing options related to initiating, withholding, or withdrawing artificial nutrition and hydration. The framework offered in this review can serve as a basis for evaluation of appropriateness of artificial nutrition and hydration in 3 common conditions in which decision making is particularly challenging: terminal illness, advanced dementia, and a persistent vegetative state. The framework facilitates guidance for institutional policy makers and individual nutrition support professionals dealing with situations in which personal values often create ethical dilemmas related to artificial nutrition and hydration and its utility. (JPEN J Parenter Enteral Nutr. XXXX;xx:xx-xx)

First published on November 6, 2009
Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition 2009, doi:10.1177/0148607109347209
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?