Weight loss in late stage

Kat63

My DH is late stage 6/early stage 7 and under hospice care. From the first of March to the first of April he lost 3 lbs. I weighed him yesterday and since the first of April he has lost 6 lbs. He is eating what I give him at meals and I make him a milkshake nearly every day and always give him snacks as well, but is still losing weight. At the Hospice evaluation today the nurse said he might lose weight for a short time then level off and then lose again later. Just wondering if others have been through this and did you go through bouts of weight loss with your loved one?

harshedbuzz

@Kat63

With my dad, he had steady weight loss through stage 6 which accelerated in the last couple of months. I would guess he probably lost 10% of his body weight in the final 1-9 months of his life and another 20% in his last 3 months. This loss came despite a good appetite, self-feeding and daily calorie dense snacks. I brought him lunch from Chik-Fil-A a few hours before he died— he ate 3 strips, fries and finished a milk shake. His geriatric doctor said that sometimes the disease progression impacts the digestive system and described dad's food as "going right through him".

My aunt lost weight slowly during her dementia progression. She was hand fed the last 2 years of her life and sometimes went off eating for a week or so, but would return to her normal appetite. Despite that, the rate at which she lost weight remained a couple pounds per month right until the end.

HB

blacksparky

So far I have the opposite from my DW who is in early stage 6. She has put on 30 + pounds since her diagnosis a few years ago. I’m guessing that she will start to lose weight as the disease progresses towards stage 7.

Scooterr

Oh yes my DW is in early stage 7. At the end of January I called in hospice, at the time hospice was called she was at 136lbs. Now as of yesterday she is at 115lbs. It's been a steady decline of a 21lb loss since January. I do hand feed her with snacks and at this point I give her anything that will put weight on (ice cream, boost, anything). She just can't keep the weight on. Hospice has explained to me, which makes sense, the part of her brain that controls how to store any kind of nutrition is no longer functioning. DW can maintain some weight for a short time (5days or so), than she starts losing again. Now at 60yrs old she looks so fragile and frail. I often wonder how much weight my DW can lose before she can no longer walk or totally function.

SDianeL

this may answer your questions: https://bkbooks.com/blogs/something-to-think-about/eating-and-not-eating-as-end-of-life-approaches?_pos=18&_sid=7238eca0b&_ss=r

Vitruvius

My DW is 73 and has been in Stage 7f for several months. She has lost a considerable amount of weight. She is 5’-7” and now weighs only 83 pounds, a total loss of about 50 pounds so far! This is a BMI of 13, anything below 20 is considered underweight. A BMI of 13 is close to the threshold of survival. My DW is still losing about two to three pounds a month. The amount she eats is getting less and less. She looks like a victim of starvation, which in a sense she is thanks to dementia.

As others have noted, hospice had stated that she is no longer able to properly digest her food and over feeding her may cause the food to “backup” in her system. This actually happened a few months ago and it took medication to resolve and so they directed that she not be feed past a first refusal. Hospice has also advised that there is no benefit to trying to get her to eat more by extending her hand feeding time beyond 20 minutes as she may then involuntarily over eat.

Arrowhead

At the time I put my wife in memory care, she had lost a lot of weight even though she ate more than I did. She was constantly on the move, walking almost every waking hour. After I placed her, she gained weight, making me wonder what I did wrong. Now she is bedridden, and her weight makes it difficult to handle her.