I've been wondering this for a few weeks now, and I think I'll get some good feedback here.
If a patient has swallowing difficulty so severe that he/she has to be on pudding thick liquid with a 1:1 assist and only allowed to be fed by speech or RN staff, wouldn't that qualify him/her to be NPO with a feeding tube placed? Perhaps the patient refused the feeding tube?
I've seen patient in the past who were NPO, on tube-feeds and allowed to eat for pleasure under the supervision of speech.
What do you guys think?
Im a student, don't have a whole lot of experience with this stuff, but enough that it strikes me kind of odd......