Sufficient calorie intake

[Peter Caribe]

Hello folks. My wife of 87 has Vascular Dementia and hardly ever speaks and lives with me. I do have carers morning and evening who do the general looking after.
My worry is that she is not being fed enough by us. As she does not communicate we are unaware if she is hungry or thirsty. How many calories should she be having daily? She cannot feed herself so we have to feed her.

 

[Kevinl]

Hello and welcome.
Notionally it's about 2,000 to 2,500 calories a day, being pretty much inactive 1,500 should do the job.
There does, I think come a point when it doesn't matter too much if the calories come from chocolate and cake as well as proper food, just my opinion.
Nothing made my wife want to eat more than watching me cook, put out 1 plate ask her to get me a knife and fork, she would get 2 of each and we'd eat off the same plate.
My wife was early onset AZ and fully mobile so it was different for me, but nothing makes you hungrier than watching someone else eat. Worked for me. K

 

[Gosling]

Hello @Peter Caribe and welcome to this forum, and I am glad you have made a first post here.
I am sorry to read about your wife and the challenges with eating and drinking. As you will probably know, this is quite common with people with dementia
I am attaching a link with information from the Alzheimer's Society which may help:

Eating and drinking

People with dementia often experience problems with eating and drinking, but there are ways to help manage these.

www.alzheimers.org.uk