Re: Feeding Residents
I'm with lovingtheunloved---give residents what they like, and they just might eat more.
Right now I have a little lady in my ALF who is losing the battle with MS. She never was what anyone would call chunky, but as the disease progressed she withered away to about 80 pounds dripping wet due to repeated refusals to eat. Well, when we finally figured out what she liked---ice cream and puddings---we just started giving it to her, and VOILA! The weight loss stopped, she began taking interest in food again, and even though she's close to the end, she is at least keeping up enough strength to stay in ALF, rather than having to go to a nursing home.
Reminds me of the very first week that I was in training to become a CNA. I was sent in to feed this 93-year-old hospice patient, under strict instructions not to let him have the chocolate cake on his tray until he'd eaten at least half his meat and vegetables. It didn't take long for me to figure out that he wasn't going to comply with this edict; he was close to death, and he looked as though he hadn't eaten an actual meal in weeks. Then it hit me: who was I, a 35-year-old woman, to tell a man old enough to be my great-grandfather what he could and could not have?
So I asked him if he wanted to try a bite of chocolate cake. He nodded eagerly, and that first bite must have tasted heavenly, because he got this blissed-out look and gestured toward the cake to indicate he wanted more. Well, he not only finished the cake, but ate most of a second piece I managed to snag from the kitchen.........and when he died, later that very afternoon, he still had that same smile on his face.
Honestly, if a person hasn't earned the right to eat what they please by the age of eighty or ninety, when do they? Feed 'em what they want, and call it good.
Nursing News