Hi Laura,

I experienced this with my mum & my mum-in-law. The taste buds change with disease and/or old age and the last taste sensation to disappear is for sweet foods - that's why the elderly or sick like to eat sweet things as they can still taste them. Because their eating habits change the body doesn't get the same nourishment and so they have to eat calorie laden foods in order not to lose too much weight. Dairy products are good for this - anything with cream, full fat milk, butter etc is good - also anything sweet & sugary like honey, jam etc (mum loved crumpets smothered in butter & honey). My mum's last enjoyable foods were egg custard, jelly & ice cream and anything sweet to graze on. It was a bit of a balancing act as she was a Type 2 diabetic but the steroids they gave her caused her more problems than the sweet food!

So the answer to your question is -Yes, give her anything she wants to eat, no matter how sweet. I used to give my mum in law Complan with honey too - she had demnetia so she wasn't aware that I was giving her vitamins & minerals! Good luck xx

That sounds great and thank you for the advice. Mum is also type 2 diabetic but it's the least of our worries at the moment like you say.

I'll start to buy cream and full fat yogurts etc as she is losing a lot of weight. So it seems the more calorie dense the better! Thank you for taking the time to respond to me. xx