Tips for coping with a poor appetite
When older adults are not well or recovering from an injury or surgery, they often have a smaller appetite. They may also start to lose weight. Try these ideas if your family member isn’t eating well:
• Ask them if certain foods or drinks appeal or don’t appeal. And does it help to eat or drink in a particular location?
• Serve smaller meals more frequently throughout the day
• To help the healing process try extra hard to make all meals and snacks nutritious and nourishing.
• Talk to the doctor or pharmacist about the value of adding nutritional supplements.
• Serve favourite foods often and try to add ingredients that increase the meal’s nutritional value.
• A person may develop swallowing difficulties or dysphagia. A speech language pathologist should be consulted to assess swallowing function, exercises and other feeding and swallowing strategies.
