The Cost of Dying: Simple act of feeding poses painful choices
Silicon Valley Mercury News: Feeding tubes are now used in one-third of nursing home patients with dementia, but some families are beginning to turn down their use. In 1979, Jeffrey Ponsky, now chair of the Department of Surgery at the School of Medicine, created an easier way to insert feeding tubes on babies. “I never even thought about dementia,” 40 years ago, he said. “It was just a simple way to make a procedure—that was already done—much easier to do.”