One thing that live-in carers are normally required to do is to prepare meals for their clients. What a great thought it is to prepare a delicious meal and have your client eat it all. Additionally, it would be wonderful if they drank a decent amount of liquid throughout the day.

Unfortunately, this does not happen all the time. In fact, it is more often the case that your client eats like a little bird. As for getting liquid inside them – that’s an entirely different problem!

As people get older, and even due to some medication, you may notice that your client’s appetite diminishes or even goes away completely. They just do not enjoy their food, or they feel full almost immediately. Adding liquid to an already full stomach can be a recipe for disaster.

If you notice that your client does not get enough liquid through the day, you may want to discuss this with the doctor or district nurse to rule out any medical reasons.

Once you have established that your client has no medical issues about adding extra liquid into their diet you may be able to work out a plan to increase fluid intake.

There are many ways to add more liquid to a diet. They do not all need to be simply drinking more water. Let’s face it, water can be boring and uninteresting. By making the liquid attractive and tasty, you may see that your client enjoys things more.

Some ideas for more fluids

• Creamy strained soups: use whatever seasonal vegetables are available and make use of the blender to make a delicious soup, either hot or cold.
• Jelly: you can add evaporated milk to jelly to give it more texture. You can also add small pieces of fruit that your client enjoys. Jelly is easy to eat and is a great way of adding extra fluid.
• Puddings: Custard is often a favorite of older people. They may remember this from when they were younger, and it may be easier to persuade your client to eat puddings than other food. Baked sponge cakes topped with custard used to be standard foods many years ago and your client may remember them.
• Ice cream and frozen yogurt: these are great in the summer months, but your client may also enjoy them at other times of the year. Keep some small tubs of different flavored ice cream in the freezer so that your client has a choice.
• Milkshakes: this is a good way to get your client to drink milk. You can buy flavored milkshake mix in most supermarkets.
• Flavored teas and coffees: if your client enjoys tea and coffee, then you may try some different flavors. Add a little milk or honey for a change of flavor.

Don’t these foods have excess sugar?

It is true that there is sugar in most of the foods listed above. However, unless your client suffers from Diabetes and needs to watch sugar intake, there is no good reason to refuse them.

Most clients have a good set of false teeth and extra sugar will do them no harm! Sugar has calories in it and solutions like these are probably what your client needs right now, rather than to see them declining food because they do not like meat and vegetables.

Additionally, many older clients are underweight and will benefit from extra calories. If you are in any doubt, you should talk to the GP and have your client weighed. You can then work out an ideal number of calories they need per day.

Final thoughts

It is often easier to persuade your client to drink more when the weather is warm, although it can become a problem in the winter months when people do not fancy cold foods.

Soups and puddings can be very useful, as can clear broths and flavored teas and coffees.

Unless there is a medical reason why your client cannot have extra calories, such as obesity, then you may want to think about extra liquid as more calories which your client needs.

Most clients that we care for eat small portions, and those extra calories can be essential to good health. Adding them to foods that they are inclined to eat, rather than trying to coax your client into eating may be an easier way of incorporating more liquid into the diet.

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