This addresses a gap in most standard advance directives: assisted oral feeding (spoon-feeding, offering food or liquid by hand) is treated differently from artificial nutrition (feeding tubes) under California law, and most AHCDs don't clearly address it. This provision only applies to advanced dementia or a similarly irreversible cognitive decline where the client can no longer feed themselves.

Comfort Feeding continues offering food by hand for as long as it's accepted willingly, stopping if the person resists or shows distress — sometimes called “comfort feeding only.” Authorize Force Feeding directs that feeding continue even against resistance or visible distress, for as long as medically possible. No Assisted Feeding withholds hand-feeding entirely once self-feeding is no longer possible.

Best PracticeThis is a genuinely difficult decision for most clients and families, and the three options sit at real extremes — stop at resistance, push through resistance, or stop entirely. It's worth confirming the client has thought through the distinction between this and artificial nutrition (feeding tubes, which are already addressed by the life-prolonging choice above) — they are legally and practically different questions.