What's new at this stage

nancyj194

My DH's appetite keeps decreasing. I fix only what he likes/wants, but he still eats so very little.

Last time at the doctor's office, he weighed in at 120 fully dressed. He used to be 5'6" but has shrunk. They never measure his height, just his weight. 

Lately, it takes him a half an hour or more to eat what little he eats.  It isn't a matter of him needing help, he just sits and looks around, then takes a bite, then chews forever and looks around some more. He watches what I do, also.  

Four years ago when he kept vomiting some of his meal up, I took him to the gastrointestinal specialist and they scoped his throat.  Everything looked okay, except a small area where food can collect. They stretched the throat out which helped.. Then two years ago, he kept spitting up his food into a napkin. Made another appointment with the gastro doctor and they did a little stretching again. The doctor said to drink water with the meal and everything would go down.  It worked! Now DH no longer wants to drink any water. He drinks a glass or two of red wine with his dinner. All during the meal he makes these throat clearing, gurgling sounds. It is so unappetizing.  I offer water, but he refuses.  I don't think this is why he is eating so very little, as he seems to not even notice the sounds he makes.  I will ask if he is okay and he replies he is. 

Is it common for mid stage Alzheimer's to lose their appetites? Anyone else have experience with this?

Also, he sits in his recliner mostly with his eyes closed. Sometimes he is asleep, sometimes he is awake, but his eyes are still closed.  Even in the evening with the TV on,  he will have his eyes closed, but repeat  a few of the last words that are being said. Is this common? 

Thanks,

Nancy

dayn2nite2

He sounds more advanced than mid-stage.  Ask your doctor for a referral for a swallow evaluation.

If the sounds he makes are making you lose your appetite, I can only suggest feeding him first and eating by yourself when he’s finished.

JDancer

Can I just add, doctor offices that don't check height, or don't do it carefully, drive me crazy. I have osteoporosis, so accurate height measurements are crucial.

M1

Nancy, would it help to only offer water with dinner and not wine?  That way if he wanted to drink anything it would have to be water....

nancyj194

Thanks for the responses everyone. I do appreciate the feedback.

dayin2nite, I don't lose my appetite and can mostly ignore the sounds. When we go out to eat, which is rare, or if we are at our son's for a BBQ with other people sitting next to us, I hope they don't lose their appetites. I agree that DH is more than mid-stage, as this summer he has definitely advanced. 

Dancer, I agree, the lack of measuring for height and only doing weight doesn't give the doctor a true picture of the patient.  Once I asked for them to measure his height and he had lost a couple of inches. He was never measured again. Our former doctor retired, so we changed to another practice and even there, they only weigh him each time. 

M1, he is Italian and his dad used to make their own wine. We eventually made ours after my mother in law gave us the grape press, two wind barrels,  and the "recipe." I never liked/drank red wine, but after my husband had a bad car wreck during the wine making process, I decided to learn to drink dry reds because I was doing all of the wine making, since DH was unable to help. Dry reds are actually are quite good. Anyway, in response to your question, he will stop drinking wine when his breath is gone.  I no longer drink alcohol/wine after I was finally able to tapered off of Ambien and clonazepam, in 2017, that a well meaning doctor put me on for insomnia in the late 1990s. Alcohol effects the same brain receptors as benzos and Ambien, so I stopped so my brain would heal.  I'll just press the water drinking again with DH and will see what happens.  All I can do is try. 

Bhopper

 We have had remarkable results with Seroquel it has calmed the behavior and increases appetite my wife had gotten down to 85 pounds she is now back up to 120 it’s taken a yearBut we saw results in the first 40 days

Bh

1962ART

I turn on the radio or some music softly during meals, which helps me ignore the slurping, gulping and loud chewing.

DH can take up to a hour to eat his breakfast while watching his morning programs.  If we have somewhere to go, I try to get the TV turned off and suddenly he can concentrate on eating and makes good progress.

DH is early mid-stage and very high functioning.

Best of luck with this.  

nancyj194

Bhopper, I'll ask the doctor when we go in for DH's annual wellness exam. Thanks.

Were there any other side effects beside the weight gain?

1962ART, 

The background music might be nice. I'll give it a try.  

Turning on the TV is too much of a distraction at mealtime, so I no longer do that.  

That's great that things speed up when the TV is turned off. 

Last night I fixed DH a small bowl of cookies and cream ice cream. We were watching TV and 30 minutes later, he had maybe eaten half of the small scoop. It had melted. He did slurp it down and spilled some on his shirt. It's like he has lost his ability to concentrate on something more than a minute or so. 

Yesterday I asked him to fill the bird bath. He knew what to do, but could not do it without me helping.  It was a matter of pulling out enough hose and turning on the water, but became so very complicated with him turning on the water, then turning it off, then pulling the hose out, then placing the hose in the wrong place, then turning the water back on.  I ended up helping him as he was having so much trouble. That's the way it has  been this summer.

Paris20

My husband has lost 25 pounds since his initial diagnosis. However, he still thinks he’s overweight. He was always a bit chubby but now he’s quite thin. He doesn’t see it and denies he has lost any weight. If I ask him whether he’s ready for a meal, he always says NO so now I just put the food down. He will eat only what I eat so that’s what we do.

Over the last several months, my DH has been sleeping more and more. He spends the majority of his time on the couch or in bed. There are times when I cannot wake him. When I tell him to get up he often becomes enraged so I just give up. I don’t know what stage he has reached but It doesn’t really matter. He’s declining, is totally unaware of it, has become incontinent part of the time, can’t come up with the right words, cannot retain any information for more than a few seconds, yet he thinks he’s fine. He hasn’t wandered off but I watch him like a toddler. After our last trip to visit family for a week from hell, I vowed there’d be no more travel. I just accept what is.

nancyj194

Paris, my husband has probably lost close to 25 pounds since his diagnosis.  So far mine thinks his weight is just fine  and sometimes pats where his stomach used to be.  Have you tried not asking about being ready for a meal and just fixing it at a set time of day and say lunch or dinner is ready?  Like you, mine will only eat what I eat.  

My husband also has been sleeping more during the day in his recliner.  If I just move around and make some noise, he opens his eyes.   Yikes about him becoming enraged when you tell him to get up. I agree, leave him alone.  

We went to visit my mother in June, but everything went okay. We have had previous visits where he fell down the stairs, not once but twice. During another visit, found him crawling in the hallway.   I grew up in that house and we have gone to visit well over 200 times, so it isn't an unfamiliar place to him.

Stuck in the middle

nancyj194 wrote:

. . . it isn't an unfamiliar place to him.

It is now, apparently.  

I no longer open doors for my wife to precede me.  She follows me like a calf follows a cow, because I am the one who knows where we are going.  If we stop at McDonald's to use the restroom, she doesn't remember where we left the car.

nancyj194

stuck, I didn't think about the memory of my mother's home not being there any longer. 

My husband still knows our kid's names. along with other family members, I think. Perhaps he never calls them by name. Hummm..

My husband depends on me to find the car and his pocket knife, etc.  I recently found a lost pocket knife in the grass over by the rhubarb plant. My guess is he cut some stalks off for me and put the knife down and walked off.  He's lost numerous knifes over the years. 

Iris L.

nancyj194 wrote:

     I grew up in that house and we have gone to visit well over 200 times, so it isn't an unfamiliar place to him.

PWDs develop agnosia--they don't recognize things.  That's why they can get lost in the house they have lived in for years.  That's why they can't find a glass or keys on the table right in front of them.  It might be described as "brain blindness."  Their eyes work fine but they don't see.  

Iris

nancyj194

Iris, thanks for the feedback on agnosia and brain blindness.  So far DH has not gotten lost in our home, where we have lived for 51years. I suppose the day will come. 

Our dog died three weeks ago and she slept in his bed. The day after she died, he took all of her stuff and put it away off of his bed. She had gastro intestinal lymphoma and so the last few months would throw up at night.  We had dog potty pads spread out on her side of the bed along with a folded sheet under those. There were two chairs along side of the bed, as she had fallen off of the bed a couple of times. Anyway, he was so quick to remove everything, but then fell out of bed himself twice since she died because he didn't want to turn the light on and wake the dog. I reminded him that the dog had died and so he could turn on the light when he needed to get up in the night.  Last night I heard him get up and he didn't fall, so would guess he remembered to turn on the light! 

nancyj194

Army,  that makes sense about the swallowing. While he eats, he makes these odd throat noises. Like he is trying to clear his throat, sort of.  Over the years he always wanted his food browned or crisp. Now he can't eat it that way.   I made an omelet last week and he ate so very little of it, even though he always liked omelets.  Yesterday I offered him a Boost drink and he drank half of the bottle, so that was good.  I'll keep doing that each day.