eating and food!

[gardengirl]

Eating and drinking is beginning to change in our household, would appreciate advice re nutrition - books to buy offering sound advice. The love of my life now tends to eat anything within reach, lemons, fruit, paper tissues! Have tried to hide as many as possible, but he now just stares at food on a plate and will eat if I place it on fork/spoon for him, will drink when reminded, but seems to clutch on to the cup. I already have thermos mugs with lids, so may start using those, but desperately need advice on, as you say, 'finger foods', a bit of expansion on this would be gratefully appreciated! Thank you for the great advice I know you will give!

 

[Onlyme]

How about fingers foods with a high water content? Watermelon, melon, sticks of cucumber? For calcium - cheese cubes perhaps with pineapple cubes as a sweet tooth seems to come with the disease.

If harder foods are ok then steam sticks of carrot or any other veg that you can find.

Red meats may be too difficult to chew so stick with white meats.

 

[KentJude]

Hello gardengirl this is a particularly tricky stage but as you suggest finger foods are a great help.

I agree with Onlyme's ideas, it's good to have foods with maximum fluid content,and obviouslycalories as well if the person isn't eating much finger food even.

Here's a fact sheet on finger food ideas from the AS website.

http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=1614&pageNumber=5

All the best with your latest challenge

Jude

 

[Kathphlox]

Dad used to enjoy peeled & sliced apple, segmented mandarins, grapes and quavers.. but those were just snacks for him as he couldn't eat anything like biscuits, cakes or bread because of him aspirating.

Dad just couldn't manage to feed himself a proper meal, in the mid stage he could managed the snacks himself which was nice, but towards the later stages I fed him those too (watch your fingers), so I generally fed him myself and he ate a really good varied diet, god bless mashed potato to make everything stick to the spoon...soup was always a good choice for lunch and strangely he could eat a pastie which I found odd as he didn't aspirate with that. He had lots of fresh fruits - strawberries, mixed berries, mangoes, peaches, jellies to help with hydration and ice cream, rice pudding and dollops of double cream on just about everything to keep up his calories.

If your hubby could manage sandwiches, small sausages, little pies, quiche, pasties that he might be able to feed himself with might help.

But to be honest, if he doesn't know how to feed himself now, then you will have to do it for him.. but generally keeping bits of snacks close to hand for him to sample may stop the tissue eating.. hope it helps.

 

[susankell]

Hi, it sounds to me like you need the help of a speech therapist (for swallowing assessment) and a dietitian both of whom can be referred by the GP. Speak to GP and ask for this as it is essential your partner/husband? gets the treatment they are entitled to on the NHS.

 

[gardengirl]

thank you!

Thank you for all the kind advice and kind thoughts! Just as you think you are getting to grips with one stage, then another one comes along - bit like buses, always seem to ride shotgun!!! Take care, x