Problems swallowing

[Rich_con]

Dear all,

My Mum who is 82 and has been suffering from CBD for around 3 years has a great deal of difficulty swallowing although a speech therapist has said that it is more to do with the tongue than swallowing. The upshot though is that she can only take the smallest of sips and while we have tried to help by giving her lots of soups and cucumber and ice chips she still gets dehydrated and contracts urine infections.

Does anyone have any good tricks to increase the hydration in these circumstances ?

Many thanks

Richard

[honjen43]

You could try jelly. It is counted as fluid. It helped my husband when was having difficulty eating, though did not try it when swallow reflex was completely gone.

Hope it helps.

Hugs

Jen xxx

[Rich_con in reply to honjen43]

Thanks very much. That seems like a very good idea. We use cucumber already so the jelly will be a good addition.

[AnaBri]

Do you thicken all her beverages? Some of the members suggested Nestlé Resources, so we asked her doctor who Okeid it. I also make big batches of either apple, pear, or peach sauce (really easy to make) so we can slide her pills right from lips to troath. And as honjen43 suggested, jelly is really good, you can use sport drinks and unsweetened jello to make a soft jelly she can drink. Hope it helps you. Good luck!

[Rich_con in reply to AnaBri]

Thanks very much for the kind suggestions

[rriddle]

At end of life, we often recommend in our local support group using moistened toothette sponges or moistened washclothes to suck on. Would either of those work? One group member gave water to his partner using an eye dropper. Time-consuming but it helped.

[Rich_con in reply to rriddle]

Thanks very much for the suggestion