Percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy in cognitively impaired older adults: a geropsychiatric perspective

The increasing use of percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) in cognitively compromised elderly presents complex treatment-related and ethical questions. Approximately half of all dementia patients will be unable to feed themselves within eight years of their diagnosis. Moreover, 85 percent of dementia patients have demonstrated refusal to eat. Geropsychiatry is often employed to evaluate these cognitively impaired patients either prior to or following PEG tube placement. This manuscript presents three cases to illustrate the most commonly encountered general dementia presentations: the ability to communicate with decisional capacity, the ability to communicate without decisional capacity, and severe verbal aphasia without decisional capacity. The study discusses ethical issues and treatment strategies for pre- and post-PEG tube placement consultations, including environmental interventions, in order to improve quality of life for this population.