Lesson 1. Eating and drinking - more pleasant mealtimes
Promoting a good mealtime atmosphere
Mealtime is a good opportunity for carers to show their care and support for the person living with dementia. An enjoyable mealtime atmosphere may help encourage them to eat and drink. Let’s look at an example again.
Spilling food
Awad has Alzheimer’s disease and lives with his oldest son since his wife passed away a year ago. The family now has four generations who eat together at the table. Awad sees the mealtime as the best time of the day. Recently, Awad’s hands have started to tremble and he often spills or drops food on the table and the floor.
2. Check your understanding
Health conditions
Common health conditions can affect eating and drinking. The activity below teaches you how to improve these conditions, if they are present.
2.Activity
Poor appetite
- Does not want to eat the meal
- Eats only small amounts of food
- Takes a long time to eat a small amount of food
- Make food appealing: use different textures, flavours, smells, tastes, sounds and colours that the person enjoys
- Eat with the family, rather than alone
- Play soft music that they like during mealtime
- Increase physical activities that they can do during the day
Toothache
- Refuses to eat and drink
- Is restless
- Has a facial expression indicating pain
- Ask whether the person is in pain
- Ask them to point out the area of pain
- Check whether there are loose teeth, mouth ulcers, etc.
- Seek help from a doctor or dentist
Poorly fitting artificial dentures
- Refuses to eat and drink
- Is restless
- Has a facial expression indicating pain
- Refuses to wear dentures
- Throws dentures on the floor
- See above for toothache
- Check that the dentures are in good condition and fit properly
Body pain
- Refuses to eat and drink
- Is restless
- Unusual body postures
- Has a facial expression of pain
- Ask whether the person is in pain
- Ask them to point out the area of pain
- Seek help from a doctor
Does not have bowel movement for more than 7 days
- Hard and dry faeces
- Difficulty passing faeces/straining
- Having a feeling of incomplete bowel movements
- Becomes anxious or agitated
- Hard stomach
- Nausea and vomiting
- Seek help from a doctor
- Upon resolution of the problem:
- Increase fibre in diet
- Increase drinking of fluids
- Increase physical activity
Diarrhoea
- Liquid faeces
- Increased number of bowel movements
- Incontinency and difficulty controlling bowel movements
Side effects from medications
- Nausea, vomiting, liquid faeces or constipation
- Does not want to have a meal
- Eats only small amounts of food
Memory loss; forgets to eat or drink
- Asks when the next meal is even if it already happened
- The person says that they are hungry even if they already ate
- Remind the person to eat and drink regularly
- Model eating and drinking (i.e. eat and drink with the person)
- Provide snacks between mealtimes
Depression
- Refuses to eat or says they are not hungry
- Eats small amounts of food
- Has no interest in food
Weight loss
- Forgets to eat
- Eats smaller amounts of food
- Eats regular amounts of food but still loses weight
- Increase the amount of food
- Provide foods that they will like
- Increase flavourful foods as the person’s taste might be impaired
- Seek advice from a doctor
Weight gain
- Eats all the food that is served
- Eats more snacks than before because they forget that they already ate
- Is obsessed with food
- Model eating and drinking (i.e. eat and drink with the person)
- Serve smaller portions
- Remove the plate when the person indicates that they are full
- Provide low calorie snacks
