My DH is now playing with his food he will cut it all up into little pieces and then mix it all up together and make a mound of it in the middle of the plate before eating it. Anyone else have this going on?
Mine now eats one kind of food at a time - goes around the plate clockwise and eats one thing, then the next. Never has done this before until recently.
Mine is like Vickie's DH . Eats one thing at a time . Just started that in the last couple weeks. We have a son with Downs Syndrome and he has always been that way. And God help us if one kind of food touches another on the plate.
My dh use to cut his food in little tiny pieces. I got use to it, but pancakes in little tiny pieces seems so strange. If we went out to eat with friends he would still be cutting up his food while we were all eating.
Mine looks at his plate when I serve it and says , without fail, " that is too much" and he will pick out the item he wants and leaves the rest just sort of pushing it about a little. I could serve him on a saucer. I tried big plates so that it would look like a small serving..the small serving that it really was and he would still say it was too much. I tell him we don't belong to the clean plate club so eat what he wishes...and no sooner than the dishes are picked up and he asks...what have we got around here that is sweet! No appetite for real food but plenty for ice cream...the kid in him..!
About a year ago,DH went thru cutting his food all up and mixing it all together.UCK! The worse time was in a restaurant when he cut up stuffed flounder,a baked potato dumped cocktail sauce on them and mixed everything up ,we stopped going to good resataurants after that and stuck to McDonalds.He is eating a little more normally now but uses a spoon,which he never did before.
My hubby tends to cut everything up, but no mixing it all together - yet! And Mimi, just like yours, he always says he doesn't know if he can eat it all (it's really not that much, considering this man used to be able to eat like a horse & never had a weight problem). He says he's not really that hungry (" I haven't been out plowing the north forty today, so I'm not real hungry"), then as soon as the kitchen is cleaned up, he's hunting for something sweet - ice cream, cookies, whatever he can find. And I have to say, sometimes the well runs dry & there just isn't anything sweet! Sometimes he'll have a dish of ice cream & later, I hear him getting another one - he doesn't remember he already had one!
L cuts up her food with a knife only if absolutely necessary. Then she will cut it all up and then it eat but she has always done that. If she doesn't have to cut it up with a knife she will either break if up with her fork, or pick up the large piece in her fork and eat from that.
My DH too cuts food into very small pieces.He likes the tiny sauages and cuts each one into six little pieces.Baked potatoes he cuts and cuts.I've never seen him mixing it together.About anything goes here.Oh well.
Years ago, I was told the last taste sensation AD patients have is "sweet". That's all they want. For this reason, many nursing homes will feed bedbound patients pudding first, and then give them their veggies and/or protein. The sweet gets the taste buds working, and they have more of a desire to finish eating. I would make my DH "super duper" milk shakes with REAL ice cream - protein powder and/or a little Ensure.. whirred it up in the blender and he loved it! If Ice Cream has milk, eggs, sugar, and the Ensure had everything else. He didn't enjoy Ensure by itself... but in a milk shake, it was fine. He also enjoyed finger sandwiches,.. made with all sorts of tasty things on soft bread. When he wouldn't eat at the table, I'd place a plate full of tiny peanut butter finger sandwiches on the table next to his chair and he'd eat all of them. I never had a problem with him not eating .... once I learned how to make easy to eat foods that did not require utensils and good table manners. He LOVED those little sausages baked in crescent rolls. Again, finger foods. Just remember back to what our high-chair children enjoyed... and go from there.
My DH is always telling me at home , that is to much as well or I don't think I can finish all that, but if we go out with one of our kids or friends he eats huge amounts. He seems to do better in a restaurant even if we are alone. He is also wanting more sweets and will tell me I don't want desert, but if I order one he will eat 3/4 of it. He says ensure is to sweet and is not a milkshake person , but the finger food is a great idea. He loves sandwiches now and I have to cut them into four pieces and not on the angle. He also will crunch his cereal to powder to eat it. I put lots of dried fruit choices on the table at breakfast and have jars of different nuts on the shelf so he can help himself. It is like you say, go back to childhood to solve some eating problems. He likes his apples and oranges sectioned and put on a plate.
My husband has trouble with utensils. I have to cut up his food in small pieces but he has a hard time using a fork so I have switched to a spoon and the dish that we use has to have sides so that it goes on the spoon with a shove as he can't seem to understand that you have to put the spoon under the food in order to get it on. He is transfixed with his hands and will not use them to eat. He loves pizza but I have to cut it into small pieces and he still won't pick them up. I do not understand this at all. I also have a really hard time getting him to wash his hands, its like he doesn't understand.
My DH used to say the amt of food on his plate was too much. Going out, he ate like he was starved. I started to tell him just to eat until he felt full and not to worry about leftovers. He when I used that strategy he would eat almost all of it. As the disease progresses, eating will become more of a problem because of swallowing issues that will follow.
Velvet they tend to lose the ability to know how to move specific body parts. the brain disconnects from sending the messages on how they move and what they are for. so sorry to hear your Dear husband is having these issues. it may be time you start feeding him as many of us had to to as well. everything we take for granted has become lost to them. poor buggers (((Nikki))
My dh eats a lot of bread, also puts applesauce on bread he calls a sandwich. He likes casseroles and soups in a deep cereal bowl. Will only use creamora, French vanilla on his cereal. I buy sugar free or no sugar added, as he is diabetic. He too cuts everything up, has to have a sharp knife. He will sometimes leave food on his plate now, he used to clean his plate. But, he will then get a jello or pudding cup, then banana. Goes to bed between 7 & 8. Then later he's up and takes a fruit Popsicle back to bed. Didn't use to do so many sweets. Scuttle changes. Bonnie