Covid and dementia

[FromTheAshes]

My DF is in a care home and tested positive for covid a week after getting his first jab. Physically, he's survived but oh my goodness his Alzheimers has taken a battering. He's about 3-4 years further along his dementia journey compared to when I saw him a few days before Christmas. Does anyone have any experience of someone with dementia being affected badly mentally by covid? Does it improve, or is this his 'new' level? Dysphagia has set in and he's lost almost a stone and a half since before Christmas.

Over my mums dementia journey, I have to say that every health issue would be accompanied by a marked deterioration in her mental state. Sometimes it was massive and she'd recover a bit mentally with time, and sometimes not.
When mum had eating problems, she would still eat icecream, and my principle was that quality ice cream had protein and fat, so was better than nothing, and she liked it too

Unfortunately sudden downwards changes are a feature of alzheimer's. Has he been seen or at least discussed with a dietician ? When my dad hit this stage the care home fed him all sorts of 'unsuitable' things such as chocolate mousse, milkshakes, primula cheese, some sort of bizarre sweetened porridge thing that he loved, all on the advice of the dietician who believe calories came first then try and get nutrients in as well.

I’m so sorry to hear that op. My ddad survived Covid wot hens stage dementia but afaik there’s no change in him but then again he’d already lost ability for most things years ago when he ‘recovered’ from pneumonia. Pre pneumonia he could walk , talk , feed himself, was mostly continent. Afterwards he was bed bound, couldn’t walk, can’t really talk, like a pp said with each thing they‘survive’ they do tend to get markedly worse. As a result of that incident there is now a plan in place for no antibiotics or treatment if they get ill. With my mum that then meant when she caught Covid she died peacefully in the home rather than alone in hospital or being ‘made better’. Weirdly dad caught it too but he was totally fine and not a single symptom.

Sadly my DF's had a few health issues and with each one I've seen a marked step down on his independence but this is by far the largest. As Kenworthington describes, it's a huge range of capabilities suddenly becoming incapabilities almost overnight. I'm sorry for the loss of your DM.

DF's been referred to a SALT and in the meantime the home have put him on a soft diet but it's not agreeing with him, he can't keep it down at all. Even when he was well he had a whole long list of food that must never come near him, top of which is milk so it makes it hard as that's the usual basis for fortified drinks and calorific meals. Hopefully he'll stabilise soon and when the SALT sees him a plan can be put in place.