Eating.

[susiesue]

Well, talking about strong coffee - David decided not to waste time with cups this morning - he just poured the boiling water straight into the coffee storage jar - I have just had to throw the whole lot away

I can see it's going to be yet another one of 'those' days and it is only 8 am As I write the smoke alarm is peeping (probably needs a new battery) - no wonder my hair is falling out

Hope all your days started better than this one

 

[Dyson]

Izzy - going out for a meal. Yep, we tried that once, and DH just complained that his meal was too small!

Oh boy, the eating. My housekeeping budget just ain't that big! 3 bowls of cereal in quick succession, followed by a bowl of strawberries (we label that Healthy, to avoid question or critisism), thereafter breakfast begins - with a bacon fry-up and bread. Lunch is whatever is leftover (quiche, pizza) from last night, or a massive cheese doorstep sandwich, and there's always a full family meal in the evening. I'm catering for 3 veggies and 3 meaties, and DH will eat 2 meals, one of each! All this interspersed throughout the day with honey sandwiches, jam sandwiches, fruit, cheese...

For the last few months he's been losing weight, although still overweight now. God knows where he puts this food, he must have hollow legs!
Newly-developed sweet tooth noted.
The over-eating ceased briefly after it was raised at a medical check. After a few days, we are back to square 1, but now it's "gone underground" a bit - he thinks no one can see him if he eats in the kitchen, "just checking the fridge is still working..." style! Quite funny really.

After commenting, he's taken to buying his own stuff. Maybe that will focus his mind?
GP's comment was, over-eating is a habit which can be stopped with willpower. I don't know about that. I foresee the day when I get big padlocks on the fridge, the oven and the cupboards.

Dy

 

[Izzy]

Oh my goodness - sounds like you're being eaten out of house and home!! Bill is quite different - it's very unlikely that he will finish a plate of food. He has always been prone to indigestion so always knew when to stop (unlike me!) so I think this is part of it. Take care. Iz

 

[Perdita]

My mum's eating habits have changed since she's had Ad too. She has breakfast and lunch very close together,she's quite often eaten both meals by 11.30,and we now think she doesn't eat much else all day, we have to tell her over and over to have a sandwich or cake with her 2nd AD treatment capsule (Exelon).

Because she has trouble with numbers she also is very picky about sell by dates, even long ones confuse her, and she says, 'oh I don't fancy that it's too old', even if the food in question was only bought the day before.

 

[wesbrencro]

Eating and drinking

I am back on this forum after a while, very interesting.
My aunt has vascular dementia, she is 93, lives alone.
She has been eating lots of biscuits, and not eating anything else, we now realise, or even drinking sometimes. We think she had a mini stroke recently, and the doctor diagnosed a slight water infection, not surprising ,specially in hot weather if dehydrated. Made her more confused.
She will not have paid carers, and would keep asking them if she needs to pay them, so 5 of us family carers now make sure she gets one main meal each day. She has lost weight too. She is a single, ex teacher, very independent .
Not sure how to cope with her remembering to have a drink in between . In front of her ,she does not always drink if on her own.
Brenda

 

[Nebiroth]

Lots of people with dementia seem to develop a desire for sweet things.

My dad did towards the end, he was living on biscuits and chocolate and jam sandwiches, and was forever asking for more sweeteners/sugar in his coffee.

I think that sometimes the sense of taste is affected, so that only strong tasting things have any flavour - what dad was eating was very sickly sweet but not to him.

I also wonder whether the body's mechanism for sensing blood sugar is affected, if that goes low, you get a craving for sweet things, maybe in people with dementia blood sugar is OK but you get the craving anyway.

As it was difficult to get dad to eat anything, we just let him eat whatever he liked. There was no point in trying to reason with him anyway.

In the elderly, when eating is a problem, the usual advice given when asked what to give is "calories!"

That is, a poor diet with enough calories, is better than the alternative, which is starvation.

 

[sussexsue]

before mum came to live with us last year she had started on the classic AD diet of biscuits and toast. Several months ago she had blood tests which showed high cholestrol and low vit B12.

By improving her diet and having vit B12 injections, she certainly looks a lot healthier. However if I ever say dinner is going to be late, it is always a case of - "dont worry I will just have a piece of toast". We do eat quite late, and she never seems that hungry so I am sure she is still snacking all day, but at least I can be selective on what snacks are available.

 

[Izzy]

"dont worry I will just have a piece of toast". QUOTE]

That's my mum's favourite phrase!!!

 

[zoet]

So much of this is familiar to me. My dad was a "savouries" man: now its a battle to get anything savoury down him, except for marmite on crustless toast, or sardines on toast.
He lost his teeth in hospital and then threw the new pair I bought him away which means soft food now. But give him a packet of biscuits and the lack of teeth is no object!
If you leave a box of chocolates or a bag of sweeties in his room he will scoff the whole lot in one go. Yet breakfast takes an hour, with me handing him every spoon, slice and sip.
Its very time consuming, and often frustrating if I have made him something special that I think he would like, but then discover its a waste of effort because he wont eat it. He gets a hot meal at day care for 5 days a week, so now I just make a sandwich or something on toast and a milky pudding. Puddings and cake of any kind ALWAYS get eaten, and even sometimes put in pockets to stash for later! Food not wanted is generally thrown out of the window, slapped on the cat (stupid cat for being there anyway) or wrapped neatly in a napkin and placed in cup of tea!

 

[scarletpauline]

I've found all this really interesting. Jack has just been diagnosed and already I am finding his eating habits are changing. I never push him to "eat up" but he hasn't been too bad yet. He doesn't eat between meals unless I give it to him, in fact he wouldn't bother to eat if I didn't cook his meals for him. When we go out for a meal (and he loves to do this) he eats everything. The other day he had liver and bacon casserole with veggies, he polished it all off and even wiped his gravy up with some of the baguette I couldn't eat all of that I had with my salad! But now I know that AD sufferers have this kind of problem, I can cope with it. Thanks. Pauline x