Our septuagenarian mother (diagnosed with Alzheimer's last year) is currently eating one gallon of ice cream every 2 to 3 days. How have other families helped restrict / limit intake to reduce her risk of obesity, hyperlipidemia, hyperglycemia, dental caries, etc? It is her one joy in life so we also don't want to take that away from her.
I am 82. If I want to eat an entire bag of Trader Joe's Original Potato Chips OR an ENTIRE box of ice cream sandwiches, that is up to ME.
PUH-LEEZE.
Am I not of an age? To decide WHAT I EAT and when? To decide how much?
Are you now the parent who will dole out the sweets?
Please kill me first.
I have to say, having thought long and hard on this one, having seem the "youngsters" now in their 60s trying to control our diets so we can live another 1/23 decade in misery? Why? What for?
l just ask you.
THINK ABOUT IT.
Please. I beg you. Please.
My LO shops, buys, serves own icecream in own home. So her biz too. At home.
However, when out at a regular function where moring tea was served to many, this became a situation that needed 'food policing'. My LO would sit next to the shared biscuit plate & keep eating with no impuse control. There was a young man with TBI that would do same. Staff would never be harsh but would manage this discretely by serving individual portions to these people, then moving the plate out of reach & view of them. Requests for more would need delay & distract tactics.
Let her eat what she wants. Why prolong her life?
I better not have either of my children tell me what I should or shouldn't be eating when I get older. Heck they better not try telling me now at my young age of 65.
One of the ladies in my caregiver support group whose mother lived to be 102, shares often how her mother who had Alzheimer's, lived on just ice-cream and cashews for the last 5 years of her life.
Now that is the kind of a diet that I want to be on the last 5 years of my life. I'm just saying.
I think she should still have her ice cream but whoever is the on-hands person providing her care can perhaps switch to ice cream bars or sandwiches so that she has a finite amount she can eat at a time (and hide the rest from her). Also consider frozen yogurt or non-dairy ones (there are some tasty ones out there). Would she eat a sundae? Like adding a fresh banana and nuts to one bowl a day?
More info would be helpful.
In any event, buy pint size tubs of ice cream once a week and call it a day. If she cries for more, either deal with it or buy more.
Fwiw, I used to pray daily for God to take my mother who suffered from dementia. I'd bring her bags of chocolate and cookies at her Memory Care ALF because she loved sweets and had spent her whole life dieting. She ordered ice cream 2x a day, for lunch and dinner dessert. In her old age, she gained about 50 lbs. at least. So I bought her pretty clothes in bigger sizes.
Is she going out still and buying it for herself? Not much you can do except try to counsel her about it.
If someone is enabling her, stop it. There's a few good suggestions here about limiting her without taking it away. She SHOULD be able to enjoy it if she wants. I love ice cream. If I was dying and someone took it away I'd probably throw my diaper against the wall until I got it back.
If she's declining quickly and you believe she's going to pass away relatively soon I'd just let her have it. Hospice will enter the scene eventually and none of the other issues will matter anyway.
Imagine what a nurse does in a hospital.. Or an kitchen assistant in an aged care home.
I think I would serve a second helping of icecream - if asked for it. But that's it. Just as I did for my kids & birthday cake.
Does the issue need to go deeper? I don't think so.
So many people with dementia/ Alzheimer’s or brain injures love love love icecream.
Factors can make people lose their own 'reasonable amount limit'.
Fauty short term memory is a big factor, unable to process appetite messages being sent to the brain, is another. Impulse control - another big factor.
I don't care about the arguement
of: someone is elderly let them eat whatever vs better nutrician argument.
Just go with common sense.
so without it, no joy? Then let her have her ice cream.
When my father was slowly dying, we tried to keep him healthy. I was filling him full of sprouted green, lentil soup. all in the hope he would recover. He didn't . he loved ice cream. we let him have it rarely because it is so unhealthy. I don't think that it would have made a spot of difference.. only that he would have been happy in some way. Maybe less angry and abusive at least.
I know it is hard, but her life is never going to come back so now, sit with her and have ice cream, find the tasty healthier ones if it makes you feel better but her freedom to choose her life is over now, this is all she can choose.
See All Answers