Enteral feeding in Motor Neurone Disease/Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: Patients’ perspectives and impact on quality of life

This episode features Suresh Kumar Chhetri (Preston MND Care and Research Centre, Department of Neurology, Royal Preston Hospital, Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Preston, UK) who describes a study which aimed to explore patients' experience of enteral feeding and its impact on quality of life.

The study was a questionnaire based prospective analysis of 21 MND patients receiving enteral feeding followed at 3, 6 an 12 months post gastrostomy. The questionnaire was asked participants about their quality-of-life.

The study focused on four main themes: (1) problems with enteral feeding (2) improved quality-of-life (3) no change in quality-of-life and (4) worse quality-of-life. The research found that most of the study participants acknowledged the importance of enteral feeding and had a positive attitude to this practice. However, the positive impact of enteral feeing may not be observable in the first few months post gastrostomy. Full paper available from: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0269216316679928