KU psychologist tackles the transition from tube to oral feeding in kids with special needs

Dr. Ann Davis isn’t patting herself on the back just yet, but the codirector
of the Center for Children’s Healthy Lifestyles & Nutrition
is pretty sure she and her team are on to something.

The feeding tubes clinical trial she’s leading has been successful with every
patient treated so far. All of them have moved from a feeding tube to eating
orally – like other children their age – and none have yet to regress.

“With our first nine patients, this has been very successful,” says Dr.
Davis, who in addition to heading up the one-year-old Center for Children’s
Healthy Lifestyles & Nutrition is also an associate professor in the department
of pediatrics and director of the Healthy Hawks program at the University
of Kansas Medical Center.

Basically, Dr. Davis explains, her team at KUMC came up with a protocol to
wean children from their feeding tubes without suffering through a sometimes-
traumatic transition requiring lengthy and expensive hospital stays.

“We wanted to develop something that’s easier on families,” says Dr.
Davis, a psychologist with more than 10 years experience working on feeding
issues in children.

“Our treatment is novel because if it is shown to be effective it can be done
at almost any tertiary care facility around the country that has a dietitian, a
pediatric psychologist and a pediatric gastroenterologist,” Dr. Davis adds.

“The intervention is done on an outpatient minimalistic basis, meaning that
it is not expensive, and it does not have a large burden to the family – in
terms of time or money.”

The clinical trial recently
received a grant from the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) and
now has studies at three cities
across the United States – Columbus,
Ohio, New Orleans and
Kansas City.

The only hurdle? Recruiting patients. No one in Kansas City has signed up
yet. A total of 54 children are needed for the study.

Participants must be between the ages of nine months and eight years old
and primarily sustained by a tube. The study takes six months and involves
taking a low dose pain medication, moving to a 20-hour drip feed and then
starting an appetite stimulant as tube feedings are reduced and then eliminated
altogether.

“It is important to get children off of tubes for many reasons,” says Dr.
Davis. “They are medical interventions that can cause infection and are not
‘normal.’ Everyone who works in pediatrics wants to help the children they
serve lead lives that are as free from medical interventions as possible.”

“Plus, our society bonds through food, so when parents can feed their
children healthy food and the family can sit down and eat together it is typically
much more satisfying for parents and for the child.”

Anyone interested in learning more about the study should contact Dr. Davis
directly at 913-588-5928.