Went
to the quarterly Care Plan meeting for Dad at the nursing home. Nothing
really new. He's staying in hospice care b/c he's very slightly going
downhill. I wanted to say, if that's the criterion shouldn't we all be
in hospice care? But I, for once, kept my mouth shut.
The big surprise is Dad is eating double portions of food, with supplemental nutrition (like Ensure, etc.) & snacks (& stealing food from others' trays!) for a total of 6800 to 7000 calories per day! AND HE'S LOSING WEIGHT! I asked how? why? is he sick? The nutritionist said it was an effect of his dementia. Much like his vascular dementia causes him to be unable to coordinate his leg muscles effectively enough to walk anymore, the same is happening with his digestive system. It's so inefficient they have to shovel food into him so he can merely maintain weight. I thought digestion was merely a chemical process, if your guts were motile at all, the enzymes, acids, bile, and permeability of the gut did the rest. No so, apparently. I was shocked to learn this, but also happy they recognized this & are feeding him accordingly. Yay for nursing home, for once.
#dementia
The big surprise is Dad is eating double portions of food, with supplemental nutrition (like Ensure, etc.) & snacks (& stealing food from others' trays!) for a total of 6800 to 7000 calories per day! AND HE'S LOSING WEIGHT! I asked how? why? is he sick? The nutritionist said it was an effect of his dementia. Much like his vascular dementia causes him to be unable to coordinate his leg muscles effectively enough to walk anymore, the same is happening with his digestive system. It's so inefficient they have to shovel food into him so he can merely maintain weight. I thought digestion was merely a chemical process, if your guts were motile at all, the enzymes, acids, bile, and permeability of the gut did the rest. No so, apparently. I was shocked to learn this, but also happy they recognized this & are feeding him accordingly. Yay for nursing home, for once.
#dementia
