Feeding appliance

摘要

A device for administering oral fluid to a patient from a container has a nipple connected to the container by a tube. The nipple is held in the patient's mouth. A detector responds to the patient sucking or pressing the nipple to initiate a flow of fluid in the tube and switches on a metering means (e.g. peristaltic pump) to deliver positively a suitable bolus to the patient. To give the patient time to swallow the bolus, the detector can be inhibited for a predetermined delay period after termination of the bolus and over the same delay period the tube will remain pinched or clamped.