Feeding Tubes

Severe Dysphagia

Dysphagia is condition defined by difficulty swallowing or the inability to swallow. Dysphagia can be caused by a number of medical conditions, including stroke, cancer, and neurological disorders. Because proper swallowing is a critical aspect of eating, dysphagia can present many nutrition-related challenges. Dysphagia can range in scale from mild cases to severe cases in which a person may not be able to safely eat or drink by mouth, making alternate forms of nutrition necessary.

All About Feeding Tubes

Define Elemental Diet

The elemental diet consists solely of a liquid formula containing vitamins, minerals, amino acids, fats and carbohydrates, and it's often delivered through a feeding tube. Although some versions are available that don't require...

The Significance of Blenderized Tube Feeding

If you are on tube feeding, you obtain a special liquid food mixture through a tube that goes into your stomach or small intestine. The type of mixture used for tube feeding ranges from commercially prepared, canned formulas to...

Withholding or Withdrawal of Nutrition or Hydration

End-of-life decisions are complicated and difficult. These decisions can be especially trying to patients and families who are already feeling vulnerable. Artificial nutrition and hydration are among the life-sustaining therapi...

G-Tube Feeding Formulas for High Protein Nutrition

It is meant for people who cannot eat or get enough nutrition by mouth. A tube feeding formula is a special liquid used to provide calories, carbohydrate, protein, fat, vitamins and minerals. A high-protein tube feeding formula...

Tube Feeding Diets for Children

Tube feeding, also called enteral nutrition, is the delivery of nutrients in liquid form directly into the gastrointestinal tract. Children requiring tube feedings must have a working gut to receive enteral nutrition. Children ...

Diet for Stroke Victims After a Feeding Tube

A dysphagia evaluation, performed after a stroke, assesses the ability to swallow liquids and solids in varying levels of consistency. The degree of difficulty to swallow without aspirating food and fluids into the lungs can de...

Tube Feeding Nutrition

If you're getting nutrition through a tube that goes into your stomach, you are bypassing the route that orally ingested food takes. Tube feeding, also referred to as enteral nutrition, is a method of obtaining nutrients that d...

Nutrition for Critical Care

Maintaining an appropriate nutritional balance is a challenge, because patients often cannot communicate their needs. Determining the appropriate feeding method, time of feeding tube placement and amount of food delivered may a...

Tube Feeding & Nutrition in Cerebral Palsy

In fact, about one-third of children who suffer from this disorder don't get enough nutrients, according to "Lovell and Winter's Pediatric Orthopaedics." When eating difficulties caused by cerebral palsy affect nutrition status...

Renal Enteral Nutrition

Enteral nutrition refers to the direct delivery of nutrients into the stomach and small intestines through a feeding tube. Over the past 30 years, specialty enteral formulas have been developed for specific diseases, including ...

Tube Feeding and Medication Administration

How to take your medications was probably not your first concern when you talked to your doctor about a feeding tube. But improper medication administration is the No. 1 cause of a clogged tube, according to the Oley Foundation...

Role of a Nutrition Support Dietitian

Unfortunately, several circumstances and medical conditions render many patients unable to meet their nutritional needs by eating. Nutrition support can be provided using the gastrointestinal tract, with a feeding tube into yo...

How to Prepare for Bolus Tube Feeding

The American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, or ASPEN, describes tube feeding as liquid food given through a tube into the stomach or small bowel. Following proper technique when administering formula through your...

Tube Feeding and Diarrhea

Diarrhea is the most commonly reported gastrointestinal complication of tube feeding, reports the American Dietetic Association. There are many possible causes of diarrhea when you are on tube feeding, and a slew of potential s...

Feeding Tube Vs. Stomach Plug

Feeding tubes and stomach plugs serve an essential function of providing a route into the stomach when a person encounters the incapacity to eat food. The Oral Cancer Foundation reports that an alteration in neurological functi...

Calories in Resource Diabetic Tube Feeding

Resource Diabetic is manufactured by Nestle for both oral supplementation or a tube-feeding source. It is high in protein and fiber, with adequate slow digesting carbohydrates to help in glucose maintenance. It is a milk-based ...

How to Calculate Tube Feeding for Nursing

Other medical conditions require a high number of daily calories that a patient is not able to obtain through oral intake. Many different types of formulas exist for tube feedings, but calculating the number of calories a patie...

What Can You Eat With a Feeding Tube?

Tube feedings are implemented in a medical setting to provide nutrition to individuals who are unable or unwilling to eat. Feedings tubes are placed for a variety of reasons and may be in place temporarily or permanently. Two c...

How to Keep My Toddler From Playing With Her Feeding Tube

A child with a feeding tube may well be curious about or irritated by the apparatus. Some tubes are inserted into a child's nostril and from there into the stomach, but most children at home who have feeding tubes have a gastro...

Side Effects of a J-Tube Feed Tube

According to the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, J-tubes are placed if food and drink intake is inadequate; if a patient has digestion problems or difficulty emptying the stomach; or if a patient has had abdominal surgery, and s...

Nutritional Supplements for Tube Feeding

Enteral feeding tubes are often required for nutritional support following premature birth, accidents or disease processes that leave individuals unable to eat for themselves. Such cases may include stroke, coma or damage to t...

Signs That a Feeding Tube Is Working

When a person is unable to consume nutrients by mouth, a feeding tube, also known as enteral feeding, may be used to administer nutrition by placing a tube in the nose, stomach or intestines. Enteral feeding may be necessary fo...

Complications During the Removal of a Feeding Tube

The most common type of feeding tube for long-term use is the percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy, or PEG, tube. This tube is entered through the abdomen into the stomach, providing a channel for liquid nutrients in people who ...

Signs That a Feeding Tube Is Not Working

A feeding tube, or medically referred to as an enteral feeding, is used when a person is unable to consume adequate nutrition by mouth. A feeding tube may be needed when a person has difficulty swallowing due to a stroke or wea...

Types of Feeding for Tube Feeding Management

Feeding tubes are sometimes necessary for the delivery of food and nutrition when other methods are not sufficient. Inserted either nasally or directly through the stomach, nourishment by way of breast milk, formula or liquid f...

Pediatric Feeding Tube Information

For children who are unable to eat normally by mouth, feeding tubes provide necessary calories and nutrients. Also called an enteral feeding, this type of feeding may be the only method of consuming food for some children, ...

What Are the Dangers of a Feeding Tube in the Elderly?

Cognitive impairments can also cause chewing and swallowing difficulty. According to the American Dietetic Association, nutritional status is one of the most important contributors to self-sufficiency, disease recovery and qual...

Tube Feeding for Infants

Feeding tubes are placed for infants who have trouble eating with a bottle or breastfeeding. For many children, a feeding tube is a temporary measure until they overcome the disability that prohibits feeding. The type of feedin...

What Are the Side Effects of Feeding Tubes?

During feeding, liquid food products pass into the stomach through the feeding tube, ensuring that patients receive adequate dietary nutrition and caloric intake. Each year, doctors place over 200,000 feeding tubes in patients,...

How to Explain Tube Feeding to Children

Children who can't eat or who can't swallow safely may require tube feeding to ensure they don't get swallowed material in their lungs, or to ensure they get the nutrition they need. NG tubes are inserted through the nose, dow...

Types of Feeding Tubes

Feeding tubes provide nutrition to patients who can not eat normally. This includes patients suffering from burns, liver failure, and neck or head injuries, or patients who are comatose, according to Merck Manuals Online Medica...

Enteral Tube Feeding Complications

Medical conditions in which enteral feedings may be useful include severe anorexia, liver failure, head or neck trauma or cancers, severe malnutrition or coma. Types of enteral feeding tubes include nasogastric, gastrostomy and...

What Are the Different Types of Feeding Tubes?

A variety of different feeding tubes exist, with each one used for a specific treatment. The main purposes for feeding tubes include removing gas and fluids from the stomach, providing nutrition and hydration, promoting healing...

What Are the Dangers of Putting a Feeding Tube In?

Several different types of feeding tubes are used to supply nutrition to patients unable to eat. Temporary feeding issues may require a naso-gastric (NG) tube, which is inserted through the mouth or nose down the throat and int...

Risks of Putting in a Feeding Tube in Short-Term Patients

A feeding tube is a flexible, small lumen, hollow tube that is inserted into the stomach. The duration of time that the tube is in place is dependent upon the patient's needs. A feeding tube is recommended when a patient is una...

Risks of Putting Feeding Tubes in Patients

Feeding tubes are long flexible tubes that are inserted into the stomach in order to provide nutritional sustenance to individuals who cannot normally digest food. Feeding tubes are commonly used to treat premature newborn babi...

Complications of Feeding Tubes

Tube feeding (or enteral feeding) is a method of delivering nutrition to infants and adults who are unable or unwilling to take in food and drink through their mouths. Tubes can be placed through the nose for short-term feeding...

How Is a Feeding Tube Removed?

Feeding tube removal is usually performed by a licensed health care professional, either a nurse or physician. Nasogastric feeding tubes are rigid plastic tubes that are inserted through the nose and passed down through the eso...

The Process of Death From Refusal of Feeding Tube

Nutrition and hydration are vital to life. Some conditions prevent a person from being able to take adequate nutrition by mouth. In these cases, a feeding tube can be inserted to provide 100 percent of nutritional needs. In som...