NECTAR THICK CONSISTENCY CRACKED

The dementia ward in the aged care home in Berwick is shaped like a coathanger. On their website, Alzheimer’s Australia describes ‘good care’ in a dementia unit as “ensuring that the environment is as home-like as possible”. Most nursing homes in Victoria have dementia-specific units. Pudding-thick liquids are eaten with a spoon, even water.ĭysphagia is common for people young and old, but it is perhaps most detrimental to health in the elderly with dementia. They must be eaten instead, the same way you would eat jelly or a créme brûlée that you buy from the supermarket, and snap the base to release the custard. Pudding-thick liquids retain their own shape entirely, not really a liquid at all. Honey-thick liquids are a little thicker and don’t pour as easily. Nectar-thick liquids are easy to pour and have the same consistency as cauliflower soup. Thin liquids like coffee, tea, soup and most jarringly, water, all need to be mixed with a thickener for a person who has dysphagia. Essentially the role of thickened liquids is to prevent choking and to stop fluid from entering the lungs. Left on its own, the thickened liquid retains the colour of watery urine. It can be a condition on its own, but it usually results from another medical issue, such as a stroke or dementia. These are used for varying degrees of severity for dysphagia, which is a difficulty or discomfort in swallowing. Nectar-thick, honey-thick and pudding-thick. There are three consistencies of thickened liquids.

NECTAR THICK CONSISTENCY CRACKED

I hand the tea to my Opa in his well-worn seat on the tan, cracked leather sofa in our lounge and imagine drinking it would be like swallowing phlegm back down when you’re sick. It is gritty in the brown, until the powder dissolves and the drink has turned thick. I swirl the thickener in and particles clump like bad cream. After the water has turned a dark tannen, I shake the teabag out. The kettle clicks off, rumbling, and I fill a mug. It has the same colour and the powder is grainy in the same way. It has a background like a milk carton and reminds me vaguely of banana flavoured Nesquik. I heap powder from a tin that reads ‘Thick and Easy’. “One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste”

Nectar thick consistency