Woman’s Hour Radio 4
Food for thought...Woman’s Hour looked at how you get older people to eat.
Figures from the Malnutrition Taskforce suggest 1.3m older people in the UK suffer from malnutrition and 93 per cent of them are living at home in the community.
Presenter Jane Garvey opened the topic with Catherine, a woman clearly under strain, trying to get her mother who has dementia to eat.
Her mother is forgetting about food, forgetting to eat, forgetting that she has eaten. Food does not taste the same to her. It is an emotional thing and a huge responsibility.
“As a society we don’t seem to understand that it is a very serious issue for older people.
“We have this vision of a small old lady... that is not right at all,” said Lesley Carter from the Malnutrition Taskforce.
The item itself was true food for thought. The problem is largely a hidden one but the message was to indulge elderly people.
Should you pile on the calories? Yes, you should. One scrambled egg with butter and cream and a piece of toast. If that is what tempts someone to eat, then why not?
Let’s have milk puddings and cakes... move away from three square meals, let’s have six small meals. If someone is in their 80s and frail and all they want is pudding, well, why not?
Lesley told the story of George who had dementia and had no appetite for food.
His family recalled that he always brought sandwiches to his work in a small packet wrapped up in greaseproof paper. So they wrapped him up a lunch and it was as if a switch was flipped in his brain and he unwrapped the greaseproof paper and ate his sandwiches.
And in cases of severe dementia, Lesley’s advice was to give people a cup and saucer, no sippy cup.
Tea in a china cup tastes of happier times – as do cakes and puddings and comfort food.. because, after all, isn’t it about bringing comfort?
