Dementia and morphine

[Pugdays]

Relative in nursing home , screaming in pain ,so staff think it's her knees ,and she's on morphine every day
Has lost a fair bit of weight and not eating a lot
Staff say dementia is killing her appetite,I thought it might be morphine.
Having looked it up , internet seems to only have info about end of life care with morphine,which she's definitely not ...I mean she's frail ,but up and about ..
Is this normal,should I be worried

Sorry, I don’t know giving you a bump. Hopefully someone will be able to help.

Dementia can certainly effect appetite. My Mum who had dementia became very reluctant to eat anything toward the end of her life, although she still enjoyed eating cake! She lost a lot of weight and was able to tolerate the special milk shakes.

It is so difficult to watch this happen to a loved one - they're in pain but can't tell you where and their appetite drops so much, they're just not interested in food or fluids. I think all you can do regarding the food, is take your lead from the nursing staff. Is she on the milk shakes ?

Could be dementia, could be morphine, could be the fact that she's in poorly controlled pain, could be lots of other things. Talk to her doctor. Either way, her pain isn't being managed so they'll need to look at her analgesia regardless.

And if you're asking can you be on morphine when not end of life, the answer is yes, you can.

I have no concerns with the home or the staff ,I feel blessed to have her there ,
I suppose I've not been in this situation before and it's all new to me
I was shocked at the weight loss and the morphine
But no milk shakes ,it's not something she would tolerate...

The staff at Mum's care home would heat them up and say it was hot chocolate which Mum would drink. She'd probably only have one a day - but better than nothing.

Initially with her dementia, sitting with her and encouraging each bite / sip made a big difference to her intake - but it would take ages. Remember too, if she's in pain, that will decrease her appetite. The weight loss can be so dramatic

Hi, I found this whilst looking for something else related to dementia and just wanted to add my experience. I'm an interior designer that specialises in helping those living with dementia and one of the pieces of advice I always give is to ask the care home what type of plate/dinner ware they are using. It sounds daft, but it can make a huge difference. It may be that your aunt can't 'see' the food - often homes have white dinner ware and it's really hard for those with dementia to make out where the food is.
It really is that simple.
Perhaps you can take her a red or blue coloured plate in and ask them to put her food on that. It can really help.
Dementia is not killing her appetite. But it may be impeding her ability to eat.

Also, the pain could be the pins and needles she feels when she stands (it's like standing on nails for some). This is a real sensation and can't be ignored.
It sounds like the home may need some dementia awareness training. Dementia UK are brilliant for advice, maybe reach out to them?
I hope this helps. I went through this with my mum. She barely ate at the end and became very frail. I wish I could have helped her more. This is why I do what I do now as I've learnt so much. So now I try to help others through my work. Good luck.

Thankyou jjdesign that's really interesting

Dementia - especially Alzheimer’s Dementia always ends up affecting appetite. A lot of patients find eating sweet food preferable to everything else, and when it comes to this, it doesn’t really help to try and convince them to eat other things if they don’t want it. Morphine suppresses appetite as well. Some places are stingy with pain relief (which is heartbreaking) I think it is kinder to have a possible loss of appetite if it means that she isn’t in pain.

For the last three months of her life my mother had only tiny tastes of food. A mouthful of ice cream sometimes, a taste of cereal. Dementia stopped her appetite and she got to the stage where she was almost unable to swallow.