Nutrition and Hydration in Hospice Care ― Needs, Strategies, Ethics

This scholarly book enables health care professionals to appropriately address hospice patients’and families’concerns about nutrition and hydration. Nutrition and Hydration in Hospice Care is a comprehensive resource that provides hands-on practical information that readers can use in everyday hospice practice. The chapters identify problems, solutions, and ethical issues of nutrition and hydration in hospice care.

The contributing authors provide the way for health care professionals, especially those in nursing, dietary, and pharmacy units, to jointly and effectively manage troublesome symptoms and ethical issues. The following topics are included in the scope of coverage:

• nutrition/hydration needs during end-stage disease
• nursing and dietary roles in identifying nutrition/hydration problems and implementing treatment
• how needs of dying children and adults are different
• legal and ethical dilemmas of withholding or withdrawing nutrition and hydration
• appropriate and inappropriate uses of enteral and parenteral nutrition support during end-stage diseases
• food service considerations in inpatient hospice facilities
• appetite stimulant use in palliative care
  
  Because Nutrition and Hydration in Hospice Care is comprehensive, all members of hospice staffs can find practical information to use each day. The authors cover issues not found in other books for nurses, dietitians, pharmacists, and physicians. They will find the information ready to apply at their work settings.