Anorexia in the elderly can lead to diseases that are malnourish, such as lack of protein from meat, causing weight loss, muscle atrophy in the arms. And legs, making it difficult to balance, causing falls and complications. Constipation due to not being able to eat vegetables and fruits, feeling weak, no energy, low immunity, making it easy to get infect, slow healing wounds and easy to get sick. When the malnutrition worsens, it will lead to vitamin deficiency, osteoporosis or abnormal bleeding. In the elderly who also have diabetes, it may cause low blood sugar and may be dangerous.
How do you know if an elderly person in your home is starting to show loss of appetite?
- The elderly person’s weight starts to decrease by more than 10% of the original weight within 3 months and starts to have other symptoms such as fatigue, exhaustion, UFABET, and hair loss.
- Elderly people have less appetite for food. Even if it is their favorite food, they do not feel like eating it.
- Get sick easily and recover slowly because the immune system is starting to weaken.
Anorexia in the elderly is often cause by many factors at the same time. Therefore, we must try to analyze both the physical condition and the environment around the elderly to see. What is the most stimulating factor. Although the deteriorating physical condition may not be able to be fix. We can fix it by controlling the underlying disease to be in an appropriate condition. If the disease is well controll, the medication will be reduc. This will reduce the anorexia that is a side effect of the medication. In addition, the anorexia in the elderly can be fix as follows:
- Adjust the menu to be diverse and not monotonous. Eating the same menu for a long time may cause the elderly to lose their appetite. This can be solve by adjusting the menu to be diverse and adding foods that the elderly like to eat to the meal. The food for the elderly should be soft and easy to chew, such as eggs, fish, meat cut into small pieces, tofu, milk or soup.
- Modify the menu to be easy to eat and soft. You should prepare food that is easy to eat, such as finely minced meat or cut into small pieces. Choose to eat vegetables instead of fresh vegetables for easy digestion and do not disturb the digestive system.
- Take them out to eat on occasion. If the elderly have to sit and eat alone, they may get bore. The family must participate in eating together or take the elderly out to eat to change the atmosphere and make them eat more. For the elderly who may not be able to eat a lot at a time, they may have to adjust to eating more often.
- Adjust your diet to 4-5 small meals per day. This will help older people eat more, reducing the problem of bloating and indigestion.
- The excretory system should have regular bowel movements that prevent constipation. When the stomach is empty, you can eat food again.
For families that have problems with elderly people losing their appetite. The first step should be to find the root cause of the problem, such as from the medication they are taking regularly or from the environment, and then solve the problem one point at a time.