[Ethical problems concerning the feeding of aged patients and of patients in the terminal stage]

The purpose of this study was to explain the nurses' and the special nurses' decision making and the facts with it in connection to eating problems with the old, seriously demented patients and with the old cancer patients in terminal stage. The study was carried out by interviewing 40 nurses and special nurses. Twenty of them was working with dementia patients in the wards of two health centers and twenty nurses had experience by caring cancer patients in terminal stage in one central hospital. The structural interview schedule was used and the interviews were recorded. It was found in the study, that the most nurses in cancer care didn't want to feed a patient against his will. In dementia care most of the nurses were ready to feed a patient. The opinion of relatives, order given by a physician, the attitudes of the other medical staff and the suffering caused by feeding the patient were the facts, which effected to the decision making of the nurses, especially in dementia care.