I brought my Dad and Mom to live with me when Dad was diagnosed with Altzheimer's. His progression through the disease was very quick. Within two years he had gone from feeding himself to having to be hand fed. Soon, he began to forget to swallow and feeding was taking at least an hour per meal. I was beside myself because it meant that if we couldn't feed Dad then he would have to go into a nursing home. We just didn't want that.
I was at the grocery loading up on Ensure when I noticed two things. First, there was a little girl, maybe three, sucking her thumb and in another aisle, an infant sitting in a cart happily nursing her bottle. It struck me that nursing was an instinctual behavior. No one teaches a baby to nurse; babies are taught to eat but not to nurse. I got an idea, maybe, just maybe, dad still possessed his instinct to nurse. A trip to the baby aisle found me buying two baby bottles and six or so nipples. Would it work?
After arriving home I cut a 1/4" hole in the first nipple but that made it too rough. I got out my hex wrench set, heated the 1/4" one on the stove and melted a hole in another nipple. That worked well.
Next, I took some turkey, a little gravy and some broth and whipped it in a blender to the consistency of heavy cream and put it in a bottle. Would it work?
I gave it to dad putting the nipple in his mouth. Wow. He grabbed hold of that bottle and held it until he had finished the whole thing. For the next year and a half dad used those bottles. Anything we ate at dinner was converted to a puree for dad.
What a relief, he was eating again and we didn't have to spend hours feeding him or having him placed on a feeding tube.
Just thought you might want to know.
