Mum stopped eating

At least once a year Mum would take on voluntarily not eating.

This was terrifying, her weight would plummet. In our situation she never fell past 8 stone when she did this. However, in Mum's world this was a lot! as she usually hovered around the 10 stone mark, so a 2 stone weight loss, looked very obvious on her small frame.

I would panic as the days went on. I tried all sorts of different ways to get her to eat;

• homemade smoothies to get her 5 a day

• sweeter foods to bulk calories

• offering her favourite foods, regardless of nutritional content

• smaller meals consisting of finger foods

• food on different coloured plates, to see if it made any difference

• eating with her, to try and encourage her

You name it, I tried it.

As Mum had no interest in food, the next option was nutritional shakes at least these would replace some of the calories Mum was loosing. So I did, she absolutely loved them. Thank goodness!. When Mum started to have these regularly, she would eventually eat smaller bits of food, but still not quite back to finishing her plate. It was a huge relief to know she was getting some food inside her.

It took a couple of months at least to get Mum eating with some consistency. I know Alzheimer's can change a persons appetite and palate in general, so I now had to find ways to keep her appetite going.

I found offering small plates of snacks throughout the day with things like;

• fruit

• nuts

• chicken nuggets

• pasta

• vegetables

• sausages

• quiche

• crisps

• buiscuits

• sandwiches

• cheese

• fish fingers

• pastries

• cereal bars

Rather than offering larger meals 3 times a day, helped for us. Mum could pick at these as and when she wanted to. I would just refill the bowl with something different, once it was empty. This took the pressure away from her to eat at a set time, and made eating in general more relaxed.