Forgetting to swallow. Any advice?

Sherry, sorry your question went unanswered for so long. Go to the upper right corner of this page where it says SEARCH SITE and type in "cannot swallow" and you will find quite a few similar questions regarding swallowing issues.

There are also some underlying physical conditions to address as well:

1. Whether your mother has dementia; I've read here in other posts that this can be a problem for some people with certain types of dementia as it progresses.

2. Whether she has any type of swallowing disorder.

3. If 3 is yes, whether she's seen a speech pathologist or speech therapist.

4. Possibly but not necessarily unrelated to 1, 2, and 3: does she eat too quickly, "wolfing down" her food before it's been chewed and cleared from her mouth?

Some working people I know eat fast - it's become a habit from taking short breaks rather than full lunch hours. But they can manage it; older people can't necessarily eat that fast.

Yes, ability to swallow can change from day to day, even throughout the same day. My mom has days when she forgets how to suck from a straw, even though she may have already successfully drank half minutes before. That always gets me, you would think sucking would be a pretty innate ability, wouldn't you!

Thank y'all so much I have felt to blame abt mom what a burden she was getting to where she couldn't stay at home becoming very aggressive and confused. She did have dementia Alzheimer's and I had no idea that it could change from day today which kind of gives me an idea what happened. I did talk to the long doctor and she said without a doubt there was food got into her lungs which caused her to have multiple pneumonia. In some ways I feel bad that I'm not did not get her from the nursing home that took all Alhimzers patients only . I felt more could have been done. Thank you all for your support one thing she never did do was a loss for words like well uh what's that word kind of thing. Hugs to all

NOT SHE WAS A BURDEN the whole self blaming was