Tips for getting liquid into dementia adult

[roughedges]

My mum has Alzheimer’s and dementia - she is 73 and was diagnosed 6 years ago. She has grown gradually frailer and is going through significant changes currently. One of these changes is a loss of interest in eating and drinking. Eating is easy to solve by feeding her but she does not readily drink when liquid is brought to her lips. Do you have any tips for getting the confused and reluctant to drink liquid?

https://www.jellydrops.com/

plus soup, custard, watermelon, jelly, ice lollies, anything like that

There are things available like “sticks with sponges” that might work.
If I remember correctly my grandmother was given them - she was a water refuser.

Jelly, ice lollies, soup, smoothies with a spoon.

is her swallowing ok when drinking fluids or does she cough?

Cordial, fruit, just normal jelly

No advice but just to say so sorry that you’re both going through this.

In this weather you can try ice lollies maybe home made ones with a bit of flavour to them and not
too much sugar. It’s so difficult especially since dehydration affects them more. Best wishes.

also maybe try water Mellons.

Have you tried different equipment- straws, sippy cup, open cup? If she holds the cup, have you tried a cup with handles vs no handles?

Does she need her swallow assessed? Does she need thickened fluids?

Try introducing some social cues for sharing drinks eg 'cheers' and drink with her, or offering her a sip of your drink 'this is a new flavour, would you like to try it?' Etc as she will probably respond to these rather than persuasion to drink which puts pressure on her.

Does she still speak/understand?

My mother stopped drinking, and the care home used to fill syringes with water and squirt it inside her cheek, then touch her throat to trigger the swallow reflex (which seemed to still be instinctive, despite everything else stopping working). Could you try something like that to get more fluids into her?

These are brilliant.

I don’t think sugar is a problem really, is it? 🤷🏻‍♀️

In this sort of weather I have found a never ending supply of mini magnums proved to be a lifesaver for all involved!

Ice lollies or ice cream, fruit, salad, yoghurts, custard (warm or cold), jellies, smoothies, milk shakes, cream on puddings, soups, hot drinks as well as cold drinks.

The jelly sweets are ok but you need the pwd to eat a huge amount to achieve a significant volume.

Definitely social cues such as cheers, can you just hold my drink for a minute please, ooh try this - it’s lovely etc too.

Good luck, it can be really tough.

Please don’t rush to think about thickened fluids, unless she is coughing so much that it distresses her or stops her drinking even more. Having said that, thicker fluids can sometimes help when someone is holding fluid in their mouth and not swallowing. If any of that is happening, consider asking for a speech and language therapy assessment. But if they assess, always ask for options and ideas rather than rigid rules.

In the meantime, try very strongly flavoured drinks, especially sweet ones like milkshakes or Coke, fizzy drinks, hot or icy cold drinks.

This has some lovely ideas:

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNda1uxt5/

Surely you just use squash?

I saw this this morning and was going to go and find it!

How about:

-water melon or other fruit with high water content
-home made ice lollies / ice cream (Lakeland do a good kit)
-tea (l know it's a diuretic but my grandmothers were obsessed by it 🙄)
-Bright coloured drinks or squash (MIL read some research recently that they are more appealing to people with dementia)
-do a bit of a "social" drink every 30-60 minutes so drinks with lots of cheers and glass clinking

These ideas are from a combination of having a toddler who is rather reluctant to drink and my husband's grandmother with dementia. Good luck with it all, l know it's really hard

We gave drinks that my father enjoyed - including lemonade and squash - and ‘wetter’ foods like jelly and icecream, watermelon etc. We found he enjoyed sweet things long after his appetite for savoury things was gone.

I will also say that eventually he stopped eating and drinking as a natural part of the dying process that happens to everyone when they reach that stage. I personally would not have syringed fluid into his mouth and pressed him to swallow.

My Mum has difficulty drinking from a mug or glass but we give her fluids with straws and she drinks them for us using those.

This time last year I was in your shoes OP. What worked for my mum was smoothies, and warm.drinks wise hot chocolate in an insulated handled cup. She developed a sweet tooth, so tomato soup and ice creams often featured at lunch and yogurt drinks seemed to go down well too.
Sending you strength, its so hard..

This account on insta recently had a whole video about this https://www.instagram.com/belightcare?igsh=NW1wc2IwdzM5dTZm

her content is really helpful

I think you need to eat about four boxes of those jelly drops just to get 100ml of fluid. Not sure how practical they are.

They are a marketing gimmick, I think. Designed to extract money from those least able to afford it.