Are you innocently starving your older relative without meaning to? It is a sensitive question because you feel it is unwarranted. How can you starve them when you love them? The possibilities are there and how you may be doing this with all the love.
How You May Be Innocently Starving Older Relative
At 77, your aunt is still beautiful, with a slender build and great charm. Active and outgoing, she walks, plays chess, and entertains her large extended family. By all objective measures, your aunt is thriving. Unfortunately, like many of her counterparts, she is starved and malnourished.
An increasing number of active, independent older adults are malnourished, especially women who live alone and low-income seniors. According to experts, identifying people who are losing weight and muscle tone is easier than identifying people who appear well-nourished, but are not.
Starving through malnutrition
Innocently starving your older relative comes through malnutrition. The causes of malnutrition are more than just too little food, a deficient diet, or problems with the absorption of nutrients. It’s a mixture of physical, emotional, and social issues. These issues often imprison vulnerable people in a continuous cycle of dependence and deteriorating health. For instance, older single adults, even energetic and self-sufficient ones like your aunt, often don’t cook for themselves. So unless invited out to a proper meal, their typical dinner may be nothing more than corn porridge, slices of bread with a cup of tea.
What triggers malnutrition?
The start of malnutrition is a series of factors that prompt people to eat poorly, often triggered by various problems normal among people who are getting old such as long-term illness, hospitalisation, difficulty chewing and swallowing, alcoholism, and depression. Other triggers are poor absorption and use of nutrients, restrictive diets, poor food state, isolation, and inadequate income.
What To Look For
The signs of malnutrition are not easily perceived, particularly in people who don’t appear to be at risk. To avoid the possibility of innocently starving your older relative, consider the following tips:
Diet check
Question older people about what they eat, but don’t depend on what they tell you. Since they hate the idea of being burdensome. Make the attempt to spend quality time with them during normal meals at home. And not just when you go out for meals in restaurants or at special times.
If an older relative or family member is in a hospital or long-term care facility, ensure you visit during mealtimes to monitor what is on offer and how well your relative eats what’s being served. If it’s weight management you’re worried about, ask for a calorie count from the hospital or nursing home dietitian.
Physical problems
Search for physical problems such as easy bruising, poor wound healing, and dental problems.
Medications
Be informed about the medications family members take and how these impact appetite and digestion. A lot of generally prescribed medications can decrease hunger and stop nutrient absorption.
Protein levels
Request from the older person’s doctor a check of certain protein levels such as serum albumin, pre-albumin, or retinol-binding protein levels. These tests can often aid in isolating chronic malnutrition.
What Can Be Done
Admit malnutrition is a multifaceted issue, and the solutions are seemingly simple. You can avoid the issue of innocently starving your older relative by making small changes that make a big difference in an older person’s health and well-being:
Enrich scanty diets
To boost the nutrition of seniors, encourage them to spread peanut or other nut butter on bread. Other options include spreading peanut butter on fresh fruits such as apples and bananas, or on raw vegetables.
Mashed avocado is also a good substitute for nuts. Beans mixed with rice or corn are another way to enrich diets. But cook the beans and corn very soft to allow easy chew and swallow.
You can also make bean soup with rice balls, or sprinkle enriched protein powder, nuts, or wheatgerm on corn gruel or oatmeal, fruit, and cereal; add extra egg whites to egg stews and omelets; and crumbling steamed seasoned fish on sandwiches, vegetables, soups, stews, rice, pasta, and noodles. Basically, look for protein-enriched foods in your area and add them to meals.
Encourage tasty meals
Try to make special diets more appealing by using lemon juice, herbs, and spices. Also try to vary the texture, color, and temperature of foods. If loss of taste and smell is a problem, try using strong seasonings and flavors. Careful chewing can sometimes increase enjoyment because more flavor molecules come into contact with taste receptors. A dietitian can also suggest ways to perk up dull meals.
Work out between-meal snacks
For people who get filled up quickly, in-between-meal snacks can be helpful. You can try a piece of fruit or natural yoghurt. Or a spoonful of peanut butter or a handful of nuts if chewing is no problem. Even a protein shake for people who are lactose tolerant can add nutrients and calories.
Give nutritional supplements
Underfed seniors are likely to be deficient in protein, vitamins B-6, and B-12, folate, niacin, vitamin D, calcium, and zinc. Supplements are important because they can help supply missing nutrients. However, supplements should not become substitutes for meals.
Employ outside help
If an older adult is very weak, consider employing a home health assistant to help prepare meals or arrange a home visit from a registered dietitian. This will help avert the chances of innocently starving your older relative. Local religious and civic groups often have volunteers willing to shop and cook for seniors who live alone. Check out your community hospital for information on programs in your area.
Discuss with doctors
During a routine visit to doctors, discuss screening for nutrition problems. Also, add the possibility of changing medications that affect appetite and nutritional status. Be certain to let your doctor know if you notice that an older adult is losing weight. And talk to a dentist about oral pain or chewing problems.
Make meals a social event
This is likely the most important step to check starvation or malnutrition. Since the chances of innocently starving your older relatives will not occur if you encourage older adults in your life to join programs where they can eat with others. Alternatively, arrange for them to have meals with friends. In one study, older adults who attended nutrition classes improved their nutritional status. However, the change seemed to result from the social interaction the classes provided, not from the information they received.
Encourage regular exercise
Many seniors, even those with serious health problems, can benefit from daily exercise. Exercise stimulates appetite, helps with depression, and strengthens bones and muscles. Exercising with others also provides motivation and social interaction.
Summary
Your being able to avoid innocently starving your older relative is not only dependent on a monthly generous allowance. It’s more about being available and getting increasingly involved in their well-being. Yes, money does help, but social interaction more than anything reduces the onset of malnutrition. Or to put it more bluntly takes starvation off the table.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/caregivers/in-depth/senior-health/art-20044699
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