It is difficult for elderly with dementia to keep eating and drinking well. They simply do not feel like it anymore or have problems with swallowing and chewing. A1 Senior Care Gresham come up with tips to get them back to eating.
Little nutritional value
“These people do not always eat too little, but often the wrong things,” Van de Rest told RTL Nieuws. “They get food with too little nutritional value or only eat simple food because they can not chew well anymore, and then it is no longer possible to eat carrots.”
How big the problem is, is a bit on the stage of dementia. “There are also stages where people no longer recognize the food, or they exhibit defensive behavior, and then they just slide their plates away, they do not know what to do with them.”
Back to the past
Identifying the problem is difficult, but the question is just as difficult: how do you deal with it? “What can work is to go back to the past, the tastes and smells that people know from the past, but also the way they were served, suddenly they taste something and then they think: oh yes.”
Because of the bad food, people with dementia also deteriorate more quickly. Van de Rest compares it with other diseases: “In order to recover from that, you also have to eat well Dementia is a very serious disease for the brain, you can not roll it back, but you can slow it down.”
Senior Care Gresham OR – What can you do?
A1 Senior Care gives these tips:
When it comes to problems with chewing, it is important that people sit upright. Sometimes it is enough to say that they have to do that.
Let them take time for the food. Take care of small snacks and if necessary, eat the food.
What works well is ‘finger food’. Because people with dementia sometimes have difficulty using knife and fork, eating with the hands is good. Of course, not every dish is suitable for this.
Adding omega 3, vitamin B 12 and vitamin D to the diet can also help Van de Rest. The effect on the brain has not yet been proven in several studies. Yet, according to the researcher, it can not do any harm at all.
