For-Profit Hospitals Most Likely to Overtreat Dementia Patients

Tube-feeding patients with advanced dementia -- a practice whose effectiveness has been questioned by two widely cited literature reviews -- is most common in larger hospitals and those run for profit, researchers said.

The odds of a feeding-tube insertion in a hospitalized patient with advanced dementia were about 50% greater when the hospital was larger than 310 beds than in facilities with 100 beds or less, and it was 33% more common in for-profit versus government-owned facilities, reported Joan M. Teno, MD, of Brown University in Providence, R.I., and colleagues.

Click here for full story.