After an infusion of a liter of some solution and a meal, I felt much better. Glad you are better. Stay well and take care! Very helpful article. What are your thoughts on hydrating gels such as Gu and other brands for elderly dementia patients who struggle with swallowing fluids?
I know some products have high levels of caffiene, but if they are no caffeinated and are contain primarily electrolytes and some sugar, are these encouraged? Hi Kim. For those with trouble swallowing, there are thickeners available, usually in the form of starch or xanthan gum, which can be added to liquids. The drawbacks to thickeners is that they can sometimes make people feel full sooner, so they can decrease appetite, or can affect flavour and enjoyment of food. I went to the emergency room11 days ago for severe muscle cramps, worst pain of my life.
Blood work showed server hydration, thay gave me 3 bags of fluid through iv and felt good. Sence then I drink about 50 oz of Gatorade and a half gallon of water a day, 10 days later and I am starting to cramp up again i am starting to get nervous that something serious is going on with me! I am calling my Dr in the morning. I am 45 year old male.
Can you please help me!!! Sorry to hear about your ED visit. In an older person I would start by reviewing medications and lifestyle patterns to see if there is some troubleshooting that can be done there. Good idea to call your doctor. It is a big struggle to get my mom to drink enough liquids. However, she loves fruits, and in particular watermelon and grapes. She seems to do ok with this, no real instances of dehydration that I can point to — will fruits suffice as a partial substitute for liquids?
Fruits and vegetables, soups, juices,teas etc. However, in the case of fruit especially, the content is not just liquid but also sugar although natural fruit sugar , which can be dehydrating in large quantities. She gets up at noon time and goes to bed at p.
She gets around 51 oz of fluid each day within 5 hour period. Is this a problem for my mother? A couple of things to keep in mind are that: 1. Fluid intake may include more than just beverages and need to take into account liquids that are in soups or other foods, and water used to swallow pills or take other medicines.
People who are living with dementia may have incontinence for multiple reasons, and fluid restriction is not always the answer. Often, a regular routine of being reminded, or assisted to use the toilet during the day can promote less wetting at night.
Look up night time nocturia. Happens in elderly females more often. Antidepressants and a lot of meds interact creating increase voids at night. They wake up in mornings soaked from head to toe. They have a history of getting up x a night to void when younger. Nocturia is nighttime urination, as you mention, and most older adults get up 1 — 2 times a night. It can be a big problem, and as you mention, medications and other medical conditions can make it worse.
Kernisan has an excellent podcast about nocturia that you can listen to, here. I also have an article on the website about urinary incontinence. I have a question regarding my father who is 77 and being bedridden from past 8 years. He got a brain stroke in the year He eats food but not ready to drink any fluids. We tried giving milk and lemon juice as a substitute of water but its not working.
I can see some confusion happing in speaking at times but not sure it is due to less fluid or due to his stroke history. Even his body is shrinking. He wets bed more than five times in a day. Looking forward for your reply which might help me with some clarity. Strokes can affect swallowing , and can also be a cause of cognitive impairment.
Both of these conditions can make it more difficult for someone to consume thin fluids as opposed to thickened fluids, which have a consistency like honey or nectar.
This has been the most educative article I have read this year. Thank you very much. It gave us a near scare. She also suffers from Dementia. Though she is getting better thank God, she is still a bit weak and lost so much weight in 5 days. We could introduce a cordial such as Ribena and juices to encourage her drinking. The weakness is still a bit of an issue, how can we help her. Also, my mum loves cold water but we are constantly advised cold drinks are not good for the elderly, is this true?
Remember that juices can be high in sugar, so I often advise watering them down with plain water, which is more hydrating than a sugary beverage. K has a good article about weight loss, which you can read, here. My mom is 96 and lives with me. We are lucky to get her to drink 3 Ensure 24 Oz and two water bottles.
She stopped eating regular food about 3 and half months ago and now only gets her nourishment through the Ensure. Up until a few months ago she would eat tiny amounts but now she puts food in her mouth and spits it out. She does know how to swallow and can easily swallow her medicine. She had gotten an iv last year and they had to go deep vein with an ultrasound to find a vein on her.
Then iv came out. Was aweful for her. Is it something a home caregiver or family member could administer with training from a nurse? Desperately trying to get my mom to drink more. This past weekend she started getting rash on legs. Doc thought it might be from a new prophylaxis antibiotic we were trying. I have been measuring output and input and the last few days we are lucky to have 30 Oz of each. My daughter came over and stayed and would offer my mom fluids.
Can you also tell me what the fluid accelerators are that I read about. Such a great article and thank you so much. It is often used in palliative care, and for short term rehydration. Your technique of having someone offer small sips of fluid frequently is often the most successful and least invasive way to go. Good luck. I am a bit over 90 years old live along weigh about lbs still drive take no prescriptions no known health problems walk a mile a day do a 45 minute workout stretch out.
After reading your article I realize I drink very little liquid and wonder if that can be part or a lot of my problem? Hi David and congratulations on keeping up with those healthy habits! As a Geriatrician, I always think about medications too although you mention that you take no prescriptions , salt intake, and other medical conditions thyroid, diabetes, heart disease, etc.
Even grief can cause fatigue and other symptoms. Keep up your healthy habits, but see your doctor too! Thanks for checking out the website and leaving your comment! Your email address will not be published. The material on this site, including any exchanges in the comments section of the blog, is for informational and educational purposes only.
Any comments Dr. Kernisan and a caregiver, or care recipient. None of Dr. Please see the full Disclaimer for more information. Based on a work at BetterHealthWhileAging. Your privacy is very important to us. It is very important for fluids to be given, even if the diarrhoea seems to get worse.
It is important to replace the fluids that are lost due to diarrhoea or vomiting to prevent dehydration. When your child first gets gasto they may refuse food to start with. This is not a problem as long as they are drinking fluids. When your child becomes hungry again, give them the food they feel like eating.
Many children become sensitive to dairy following a bout of gastro. You can usually manage this by reducing their dairy intake for a period of three weeks following gastro. If the symptoms persist beyond this, take your child back to your GP. We acknowledge the input of RCH consumers and carers. To donate, visit www. This information is intended to support, not replace, discussion with your doctor or healthcare professionals.
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Give 1 teaspoon 5 ml every 5 minutes. Even if your child vomits, continue to give oral rehydration solution. Much of the liquid will be absorbed, despite the vomiting.
After 2 hours with no vomiting, begin with small amounts of milk or formula and other fluids. Increase the amount as tolerated. Do not give your child plain water, milk, formula, or other liquids until vomiting stops. As vomiting decreases, try giving larger amounts of oral rehydration solution.
Space this out with more time in between. Continue this until your child is making urine and is no longer thirsty has no interest in drinking. After 4 hours with no vomiting, restart solid foods. After 24 hours with no vomiting, resume a normal diet. You can resume your child's normal diet over time as he or she feels better.
This can make your child feel worse. You can give your child more food over time if he or she can tolerate it. For a baby over 4 months, you can give cereal, mashed potatoes, applesauce, mashed bananas, or strained carrots during this time. For children age 1 or older, you can add crackers, white bread, rice, crackers, and other complex starches, lean meats, yogurt, fruits, and vegetables.
Low-fat diets are easier to digest than high-fat diets. If a stool sample was taken or cultures were done, call the healthcare provider for the results as instructed. Never use a mercury thermometer.
For infants and toddlers, be sure to use a rectal thermometer correctly. A rectal thermometer may accidentally poke a hole in perforate the rectum. It may also pass on germs from the stool. Here are guidelines for fever temperature.
Rectal or forehead temporal artery temperature of Fever that lasts more than 24 hours in a child under 2 years old. Or a fever that lasts for 3 days in a child 2 years or older. Was this helpful? You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer.
In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript. The discovery by the Phoenix Lander of calcium and magnesium perchlorates in Martian soil samples has fueled much speculation that flows of perchlorate brines might be the cause of the observed channeling and weathering in the surface.
Here, we study the structure of a mimetic of Martian water, magnesium perchlorate aqueous solution at its eutectic composition, using neutron diffraction in combination with hydrogen isotope labeling and empirical potential structure refinement.
This may explain the low evaporation rates and high deliquescence of these salt solutions, which are essential for stability within the low relative humidity environment of the Martian atmosphere.
Water is widely regarded as a prerequisite for the development and survival of life because organisms require water for a range of biophysical and biochemical processes 1. For instance proteins are surrounded by water in the form of a hydration shell that acts as a lubricant, facilitating the dynamic motion required for their function 2. Furthermore, many biochemical reactions require water to be catalyzed by enzymes 3.
Hence, the search for extra-terrestrial life usually starts as a search for water. In this regard there is currently considerable interest in the growing evidence for the presence of flowing water on the surface of Mars 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , Environmental conditions on the Martian surface are not suitable for pure water to remain as a liquid; however, the recent discovery of perchlorate in the regolith of the Martian northern plains has provoked some insight into how liquid water may exist below the Martian surface 4.
An aqueous perchlorate solution could therefore provide the means for water to remain liquid, and therefore have flow at the sub-zero temperatures found on Mars In addition, water in the form of a briny liquid is likely to occur in other parts of the Solar System 16 , Besides their potential extraterrestrial role, perchlorate solutions are also essential in many electrochemical studies since perchlorate holds the position of being the most chaotropic anion in the Hofmeister series Many of the unique properties of water are caused by the hydrogen bonding between water molecules and other constituents in the solution and it is well known that dissolved ions and cryopreservative molecules can significantly alter the structure of water in solution 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , One of the most direct ways to measure this structure in aqueous solutions is to use neutron total scattering experiments to investigate the hydrogen bond structure.
Neutrons are used because they are strongly scattered by hydrogen atoms, whose contribution to the scattering pattern can be markedly altered by substituting deuterium for hydrogen. Hence, we study the structure of water in magnesium perchlorate solutions using total neutron scattering in combination with hydrogen isotope substitution.
Fundamentally our conclusions are that magnesium perchlorate has a major impact on water structure in solution.
The relatively pronounced cation to anion association is mediated by water molecules and causes a major disruption to water structure. This disruption is the equivalent to a pressure in pure water needed for the formation of Ice VII. The first coordination shell in this form of ice is characterized by both hydrogen-bonded and non-hydrogen-bonded water molecules. To a marked extent water—water hydrogen bonds in the pure liquid are replaced by cation-water-anion bonds in solution. This, no doubt, is a major contributing factor to the very deep eutectic point of this solution.
It may also explain the high deliquescence and low evaporation rates associated with this salt—factors that are important for the solutions to be stable under the low and widely varying humidity conditions found on the surface of Mars For the EPSR computational modeling, a cubic simulation box was constructed at the same concentration, temperature and atomic number density as the experimentally measured samples, using relevant starting reference seed potentials and molecular structures 29 , 30 , Note that the measured neutron data for the three different isotopic mixtures are compared to the fits produced by the EPSR simulation in Fig.
These do not change significantly at the higher temperature. In plots a — c the different functions are shifted vertically for clarity. The EPSR simulation yields structural information on all the interactions in the solution, but here we focus on the key interactions concerning the structure of water and the ion—water interactions. The local structure of water in the magnesium perchlorate solutions is given by the radial distribution functions RDFs between the oxygen and hydrogen of water, Ow and Hw, respectively Fig.
By comparison with the same functions in pure water, it is seen that the solute in this case has a drastic effect on water structure, effectively eliminating the second peak in the Ow—Ow RDF at 4. The magnesium to other-atom RDFs are shown in Fig. It should be mentioned that the neutron data are relatively insensitive to the how close the perchlorate ion can approach the oppositely charged magnesium ion. Two simulations were run either allowing magnesium-perchlorate contacts or not allowing such contacts.
The latter case gave slightly better fits to the scattering data and is the one shown here. The hydrogen atoms of these molecules point away from the cation, as expected. Figure 1d shows the water volume distribution function see Methods for more information.
A pixel is regarded as occupied if it lies within 2. The long range part of this function corresponds to the volume fraction of the solution occupied by water—about 0.
The substantial effect of the magnesium perchlorate ions on water structure is demonstrated in Fig. The fact that dissolved ions can modify water structure so dramatically has often been overlooked, but has been seen in a number of previous neutron studies 19 , 38 , 39 , Spatial density functions of water around a central water molecule.
The quoted pressures here refer to the pressures at which the scattering data were measured, not to the pressures of the EPSR refinements, which are constant volume simulations. For pure water at ambient pressure, a , a first and second coordination shell are apparent, the second shell being roughly in anti-symmetry to the first shell.
With application of pressure this shell collapses inwards but is still distinct b. In Mg ClO 4 2 aqueous solutions the second shell has collapsed completely onto the first shell, c , in a manner reminiscent of Ice VII. To ascertain the nature of anion—water and anion—cation binding the spatial density function of Mg and water around the perchlorate anion is shown in Fig. It is notable that both water and magnesium prefer to associate with the oxygen atoms of the perchlorate ion, the former through hydrogen bonding, while the latter is a purely Coulombic attraction.
There is also some association along the edges of the perchlorate tetrahedron, but weaker bonding to the faces. The position of the magnesium second shell red further away from the cation than the water suggests that water acts as an intermediary between the anion and cation in this solution. Distributions of water and magnesium around the perchlorate ion. Distribution of water yellow and magnesium red around the perchlorate ion in Mg ClO 4 2 aqueous solutions.
This local confinement is visualized in Fig. This distribution changes continually as the simulation proceeds, but the basic picture of a partially segregated water network remains unchanged throughout.
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