Routine
Building a mealtime routine that holds
Mealtimes carry more than food. They are one of the few fixed points left in a day, and when they start to slip, the rest of the day tends to slip with them.
Short answer
Keep the same times, the same place and the same short spoken prompt every day. Reduce choice, reduce noise, and serve smaller portions more often. Consistency does more than persuasion.
Fix the time before you change the food
Eating at the same hour each day builds an expectation the body can follow, even when memory cannot. Drifting mealtimes are one of the most common reasons meals get skipped entirely.
Pick times that suit their old habits rather than yours. Someone who ate at half past twelve for fifty years will not adapt to two o'clock now.
Cut the number of decisions
- One plate, already served, rather than dishes to choose between.
- A plain plate in a colour that contrasts with the food — pale food on a white plate can be genuinely hard to see.
- One set of cutlery, not three.
- Television and radio off; background noise makes eating harder to concentrate on.
Use the same short prompt
"It's lunchtime, dad. There's a plate on the table." Said the same way at the same time, this becomes part of the routine rather than an instruction to be resisted.
Long explanations and encouragement tend to raise resistance. Short and warm works better.
Smaller and more often
Six small offerings across the day usually achieve more than three full meals. Finger food that can be eaten while moving suits people who find sitting still difficult.
Keep an eye on weight. Unintentional weight loss is a reason to ask the GP for a dietitian referral.
Protect the atmosphere
Eating together, unhurried, at a table that is laid, does more for intake than any specific food. If refusal is happening often, look at what happened in the hour before the meal rather than at the meal itself.
The wider picture
roughly 6 in 10
people with dementia in the UK live in their own home, not in care.
Source: Alzheimer's Society