| Methods |
Observational prospective cohort study. Median follow up of 30 months |
| Participants |
67 Spanish community based patients aged 65 years or older (mean age 82.2 years plus or minus 6.7 years) with advanced dementia defined by DSM‐IV and stage 7A or above on FAST. Not stated reason for tube feeding. Unclear if those who were tube feed were comparable to those not tube feed. 92.5 % female. |
| Interventions |
14/67 were nasogastric tube fed. |
| Outcomes |
Univariate analysis with log rank test was used to identify factors predicting mortality. Those variables found to be related with survival were included in a cox proportional hazards model. The final model included the following factors; pneumonia during previous year (RR 3.7, P = 0.001), the presence of permanent nasogastric tube (RR 3.5, P = 0.003) and serum albumin level lower then 3.4g/dl (RR 2.9, P = 0.028). |
| Notes |
Limitations: Unclear how comparable those tube fed compared to those not tube fed. Small number tube feed. |
