Hello! My mother has recently come home from a spell in hospital, having had pneumonia again. Her eating was not brilliant before she went in, but normally, my father could get her to eat something at each mealtime. She has been home for 11 days now, and for the last five, the only food that she has eaten is a mouthful of toast. My father is going spare, as you can imagine, and sought the opinion of the community nurse who came to check on Mother's pressure sores. The nurse advised consulting the doctor ASAP if this situation continued, and, following my sister's visit yesterday, Father has confirmed he will call the doctor today. We are also concerned about her fluid intake (possibly even more important than the eating) - she has to be prompted to drink anything, but considers that one mouthful has fulfilled her duty! My mother can be very insistent, and, when we try and persuade/cajole/bribe/threaten her into eating something, she will say "I don't WANT it!". If you do manage to get a mouthful into her, she will instantly claim to feel sick, and start to cough. She never has been sick, however. We're used to her suddenly not liking foods that she's always loved - that's much easier to deal with - but flat refusal is so difficult. My husband asked her if she had any feelings of hunger, or needing to eat, and she just answered "No, not at all". We've noted that her response to us has deteriorated - she would normally make some effort to join in a discussion, for example, and would certainly respond well to being spoken to directly, but since she came home from hospital, she will barely reply to a question, and now dozes far more frequently. She does understand that not eating can result in her becoming ill and potentially being taken back to hospital, but seems unable to do anything about it. My sister and I seriously fear that our father's worst nightmare might be about to come true, and that she will need to go into full time care - he is not coping, whatever he might say to us, and really doesn't know which way to turn at the moment. Thank you for taking the trouble to read this lengthy post, it has made me feel better just typing it all out. Catherine.
Mum's not eating, Dad's at the end of his tether
- Thread starter hollysmum
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I'm so sorry that you're having this trouble, which is very upsetting for all of you.
I nursed my Mum-in-law through Alzheimer's 25 years ago and she became very similar to this towards the end of her life. Without wishing to upset you further, could this be the reason with your Mum, do you think?
I understand that there are 'stages' in this dreadful disease (though I haven't seen this with my husband yet) but there is a forum on here which deals with the middle and end stages and I think you may find the comfort and help you are looking for there.
My thoughts are with you (((hug)))
I nursed my Mum-in-law through Alzheimer's 25 years ago and she became very similar to this towards the end of her life. Without wishing to upset you further, could this be the reason with your Mum, do you think?
I understand that there are 'stages' in this dreadful disease (though I haven't seen this with my husband yet) but there is a forum on here which deals with the middle and end stages and I think you may find the comfort and help you are looking for there.
My thoughts are with you (((hug)))
This may be too basic to be of help, but could it possibly be the loss of the sense of taste that is causing an issue? Sweet things will often be taken because the senses of sweet and sour are the last to go, but maybe you've been down that road already.
Were the SALT team involved to check on your mother's swallow? Has any remaining infection or a recurrence of an infection been ruled out?
Forgive me if my inexperience is throwing up ideas that you have already tried. I hope you find resolution.
Were the SALT team involved to check on your mother's swallow? Has any remaining infection or a recurrence of an infection been ruled out?
Forgive me if my inexperience is throwing up ideas that you have already tried. I hope you find resolution.
Has anyone checked her swallow?
If she has had pneumonia she may be having swallowing things so that she is getting food particles in her lungs. If no-one has checked this please get on the your GP for a SALT (speech and language therapy) assessment who (despite their name) are the experts on this. They may suggest that your mum goes on a diet of pureed food and thickened fluids to make it easier to swallow
If she has had pneumonia she may be having swallowing things so that she is getting food particles in her lungs. If no-one has checked this please get on the your GP for a SALT (speech and language therapy) assessment who (despite their name) are the experts on this. They may suggest that your mum goes on a diet of pureed food and thickened fluids to make it easier to swallow
Hi, Ginny - hugs very much appreciated! My sister and I had thought that she might have reached the latter stages, yes, but my father still harbours the hope that some miraculous occurrence or medication/supplement will snap her out of this "phase", but I think that he knows, deep down, that things are not going to improve much, if at all. I'm going to check out the forum you suggest. Catherine.
Hi, canary - I am not sure if anyone's checked her swallowing function - it crossed my mind when I was reading something else the other day, and I'm going to ask my dad when I see him later on. He might not have even heard about this himself. Thank you very much for ringing that bell!
Hi, Pete, thank you so much for your reply. She's certainly got a sweet tooth, regardless, and yes, it is normally easier to get her to try something sweet. I am unsure whether she has had a SALT assessment, but I will definitely be finding out, and if not, trying to arrange one pronto.
Just to add to Petes observations, I ( no dementia) recently had antibiotics and lost all sense of taste. Even water made me feel sick! The first thing I could eat was ice cream! Then the little trifles that you can buy ( small yoghurt pot size).
SALT is a good idea as well.
However, OH lived for several months on fresh orange juice and dark chocolate. He would eat nothing else. Not a big person, hIs weight loss was horrific. I tried him with the drinks - ensure? - all tasted horrible to him.
Eventually, for no specific reason that I could fathom, he started eating again. By then, his stomach had shrunk, so food was gradually increased, but it was slow.
Eventually he regained most of his lost weight. He was fine then until his final months. Though chocolate brownies remained a favourite!
SALT is a good idea as well.
However, OH lived for several months on fresh orange juice and dark chocolate. He would eat nothing else. Not a big person, hIs weight loss was horrific. I tried him with the drinks - ensure? - all tasted horrible to him.
Eventually, for no specific reason that I could fathom, he started eating again. By then, his stomach had shrunk, so food was gradually increased, but it was slow.
Eventually he regained most of his lost weight. He was fine then until his final months. Though chocolate brownies remained a favourite!
Hello, Spamar! I totally get what you mean re the antibiotics, and that has affected her, we're sure, but to eat absolutely nothing is new, and she's really not drinking very much, either. She has survived four lots of pneumonia now, and also sepsis, when she was in hospital for four months in 2016. She's a tough old girl, but this is so worrying.
Mum was referred to speech therapist as she wasn't eating whilst in hospital. She was put on a texture C thick puree diet. (It was useful for me to watch the speech therapist trying to feed her too as she spat out anything remotely lumpy (like mince). It was also useful to see how tired she was getting after 10 mins of eating - so little and often made more sense.)
It was a big challenge to find the right food once home again. We've been managing ok though - pureed porridge for breakfast, a well known company energy dense pureed classic petite food range for lunch, pureed eggs with butter and cream for tea and inbetween lots of fortifying drinks.
The dietician calls out every 6 weeks to weigh her now and she thinks in terms of calorie intake. so any time mum isn't eating her 500 calorie meal then I tend to give her one of the fortifying drinks as they have 300calories and anything else after that but it's an effort.
So see the speech therapist asap and hopefully your mum will be back on track before too much weight is lost.
It was a big challenge to find the right food once home again. We've been managing ok though - pureed porridge for breakfast, a well known company energy dense pureed classic petite food range for lunch, pureed eggs with butter and cream for tea and inbetween lots of fortifying drinks.
The dietician calls out every 6 weeks to weigh her now and she thinks in terms of calorie intake. so any time mum isn't eating her 500 calorie meal then I tend to give her one of the fortifying drinks as they have 300calories and anything else after that but it's an effort.
So see the speech therapist asap and hopefully your mum will be back on track before too much weight is lost.
The doctor visited yesterday, and has stated that he believes that Mother's "unwillingness" to eat is psychological, because she doesn't want to feel sick. Therefore, she now has a prescription for some unpronounceable drug that suppresses feelings of sickness. My father is delighted, of course, and probably has visions of her eating at least half of each meal, but I still can't help feeling that a more specialist person is required. He had never heard of SALT, and is pretty sure she's never had such an assessment. How, therefore, can the doctor possibly know that her problem with eating is purely psychological? I just get this feeling that, perhaps days or weeks down the line, she's going to be back to refusing food again.
