Syringe feeding: current clinical practice and recommendations.
In a survey of directors of nursing services of 101 nursing homes, it was found that 17 homes still used syringes to feed some of their frail residents. Three of these 17 facilities did not have easy access to speech pathologists, and the facility feeding the greatest number of residents by syringe did not use the services of a speech pathologist to assess swallowing. The practice of syringe feeding seems to be going out of favor, but until this practice is no longer used it is hoped that the recommendations in this article will increase the knowledge and awareness of professional nurses, who are often instrumental in coordinating the difficult and complex decision to syringe feed.
Soriano
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D000368:Aged; D004750:Enteral Nutrition / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000451:nursing*; D006801:Humans; D013594:Syringes / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*