Tips for getting liquid into dementia adult

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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?

Just checked. 9 sweets is the equivalent of 50ml water. Thats ridiculous. A few spoons of ice cream will give you more fluid than that!

Im really sorry to hear this OP, this is a difficult situation.

My gran began to struggle to swallow around the same time she began refusing fluids.

we got prescribed a thickener, and instead of making thickened drinks we made ‘jelly’ in small shot glasses. We used Fruit juice (apple or cranberry we’re favourites) and water , with a Small amount of thickener , and we fed her this with a teaspoon …. We called it jelly or pudding, as she was often willing to eat from a spoon when she wasn’t willing to drink.

At one point in hot weather we were doing a small jelly every half hour, and she was managing enough fluids to keep her healthy.

we got the water jelly sweet things, and she did eat a few a day. We saw this as a top up fluid source. We also offered lots of soup, custard, actual jelly, watery fruit and yoghurts . The nurse said all fluids count so we tried to include a water rich food as often as we could x

Also- we switched to decaf tea as not a diuretic. And tried different drinking bottles, straws etc … basically offered a variety of ways to drink at different times. We found she was happier to drink when not as tired.

we had an empty jug on the bench, and every time she had her jelly we poured the same the amount she had taken into the jug (just water), to measure how much she had had each day.

Absolutely, I thought they sounded great until I looked into it. May as well make up jelly.

OP, I hope you find something. We used to go and buy my gran Slush Puppies, she liked the blue one and it's not like the sugar or additives matter.

At DM’s care home they gave them small glasses of weak squash several times a day, as well as tea/coffee. Most of them wouldn’t drink plain water.

And lots of ‘watery’ food - soups, stewed fruit with custard, jelly, etc.