It is a palliative cook who reveals him.
The softer the end of life, the more serenely it is lived. In the elderly, food becomes an act of care in its own right. It is no longer only used to feed but to comfort, relieve and maintain a link with life. Without forgetting that with age, the body changes: chewing and swallowing capacities decrease, tastes evolve, appetite drops. “Patients often lose the ability to swallow or their taste buds change due to drugs and treatments such as chemotherapy” Observes Spencer Richards, chef of the Sobell House palliative care center in Oxfordshire in England. Likewise “Many people in palliative care become sensitive to salt” while “People with cancer often have a weakness for sweet.”
For him, it is essential to adapt each meal to the wishes of residents: “These are very important little touches, especially for isolated people or who feel alone. ” In very elderly people, these food attentions have a strong symbolic value. Besides, if the tastes vary according to the patients, there is a request that most often comes up in the last days of life according to the chef. Even more than 80 and 90 years of age.
This is the birthday cake. Chocolate, cream, strawberries … Many want to reshape this childhood souvenir cake. “There was this woman who celebrated her 93 years during her stay. She had not had a very traditional family life, and birthday cakes were never really part. When she was surprised, she was in tears” he tells the English site of the Mirror. This type of gesture has a soothing effect. It supports morale, reactivates emotional memory, and helps to live better in the last days.
As Spencer Richards likes to remind you “Food is a powerful vector of emotions”. Gail Inderwies, nurse in palliative care in Pennsylvania (United States) questioned by the HuffPost, says “always” To the families with whom she works, to prepare the favorite dish of the person who is about to leave them. “To be seated together, to share a tradition and to laugh is to transmit to the patient dying the message that everything will be fine.”
