Dear Barbara, I'm facing the choice of having my mother be fed or not as she is barely feeding herself. I need facts to share with my sister on allowing her to go without prolonging life through feeding.
As a person enters the dying process, months before death occurs, they will gradually stop eating. Months before death they will stop eating meats, then fruits and vegetables, then soft foods, then liquids and finally in the days before death they will not even take water. This is normal. This is how people die.
How we take care of people who are dying has changed over eons of time. Dying was once viewed as a natural part of living. Now it is the enemy to be avoided at all costs (literally at all costs in many cases). What was once natural is now medicalized. What hasn’t changed is how the physical body dies from disease or old age. When not interfered with by medical procedures a person will gradually stop eating, slowly withdraw into themselves and sleep more and more. The body reaches a point where it is asleep all the time, non responsive (completely withdrawn from surroundings) and not eating or drinking. This is how people have always died. This is the natural way a body (man, woman, child or animal) dies.
It isn’t that the person doesn’t want to eat. They usually try but state they just “can’t” eat. This is because the eating or not eating has nothing to do with the personality choosing to eat or not. It has to do with the body releasing its hold on this physical plane. Food is what holds us here. Food is our anchor to earth.
This is one of the hardest concepts of dying for people to understand. So much of our life is supported by eating, its sociability, the holidays, and expressions of love, but actually eating’s purpose is to sustain the body, to keep it alive. When the dying process begins it is normal for eating to gradually stop.
When a person’s disease can’t be fixed, and death is going to be its result, the goal becomes one of providing comfort. ALWAYS offering food but not forcing is the comfort we give now. Offer favorite foods, offer liquid protein supplements, offer small, high protein snacks. Forget about three meals a day. Three regular meals is too much food and overwhelming.
ALWAYS OFFER SMALL AMOUNTS OF FOOD FREQUENTLY but don’t force or be disappointed when the food is not eaten. The body is doing what it will always do when death approaches, when we don’t interfere with the wonders of our modern technology. The body will reject the food and gradually stop eating.
Remember we are all going to die some day. Death is very much a part of the life experience. How the body dies naturally is by gradually not eating.
Something More about Food and the Dying Process~
I talk extensively about food in the dying process on my dvd, NEW RULES for End of Life Care. Particularly about the affects of forcing food at end of life.
37 comments
Hi Denise, to answer your question of why meat is the first food we stop wanting to eat as we enter the dying process: my guess is because meat is a grounding food. It provides large amounts of protein and protein is a building, growing part of food. As the dying process begins the body is stopping growth, stopping building. It is trying to shut down, to stop. As I said that is a guess but seems logical. Don’t know if any research has been done on this particular aspect of dying. Thanks for asking. Blessings! Barbara
Why is meat the first food item to be refused during the dying process?
Hi Mary, in response to your comment about your mother’s dementia and decline and you wanting to have her on hospice; Dementia doesn’t play by the rules which means your mother’s decline may not indicate she has six months or less to live (which is the requirements for hospice). That said, not all doctors are comfortable with hospice. Not knowing your mother’s complete medical history I can’t say if hospice is appropriate or not.
You might talk with the nursing facility staff to see what their thoughts are on hospice and if they work with a particular one. Have their hospice do an assessment visit to see if she is appropriate. You can then have the nursing facility physician talk with her doctor. The nursing home doctor can make a hospice referral. This is a difficult time for you, your mother not so much. Her world is now different than the one we are used to. Love her, talk with her as if she understands and be there. Have you read my booklet How Do I Know You? It is about dementia at end of life. You may find it helpful. If I can be of any help use my personal email barbara@bkbooks. com. Blessings to you and your family. Barbara
My mom has been in the nursing home for 4 1\2 years with deminta and has been sleeping most of the time. There is little or no conversation with her. What she says makes no sense. She has lost weight I would say she weighs only about 100 lbs. We would like her to be put into hospise (my sister and Step-dad and myself. She is not ever going to get better. The Dr won’t put her into hospise. She always says she wants to died when she does make sense. Is there anything that we can do?
Hi Russ, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts about the death of your beloved poodle. For many of us our animals are also our children and our loss of them is heart wrenching. What I have learned from working with end of life all these many years is that animals die the same as humans. They withdraw, sleep more and eventually stop eating. Their hours to minutes are the same as well, even breathing like a fish just before they die. The physical body, animal and human, has always died this way. Either fast or if gradual following the same pattern. This is how the body dies. How we deal with approaching death what has changed over the centuries.
Again thank you for sharing. My blessings are with you. Barbara
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