What I Learned About Hydration and Dementia Care Through Developing Jelly Drops

by Lewis Hornby, Founder & CEO, Jelly Drops

29th August 2024

Jelly Drops are 95% sugar-free water sweets that I came up with to help my Grandma Pat, who lived with dementia.

About five years into her dementia diagnosis, her condition dramatically declined and she was rushed to hospital with my family  basically told to expect the worst. It wasn’t until she was at hospital they realised it wasn’t dementia that had led her to end up there but dehydration. After 24 hours on IV fluid, thankfully she was back to her normal happy self but I couldn’t believe the effect that dehydration had on her.

I realised this situation wasn’t uncommon and many in elderly care were finding it hard to stay adequately hydrated which had knock-on effects like poor cognitive ability, UTI’s and falls resulting in people going to hospital and severely worsening their condition.

Dehydration and dementia – the problem

To understand why people with dementia specifically struggled with hydration I started speaking with dementia psychologists and health professionals and it turned out there was a number of reasons:

• People living with dementia may no longer felt thirst
• They may not equate drinking with quenching thirst
• They may not recognize cups or have the dexterity to use them
• These issues can lead to a confusion that makes it almost impossible for many to hydrate themselves independently

Following this insight I spent a month in Grandma’s care home where I observed many of these behaviours firsthand such as putting food in the drink or pouring the drink away. Also just the fluid nature of drinks mean they are easily spilled.

However by far the biggest problem I found was many would refuse help to drink and carers or family members simply didn’t have the time to sit with each resident often to ensure they were sufficiently hydrated.

The idea
With drinking being such an issue, I started to focus on eating habits and identified many of the ways that people would willingly engage with finger foods which appeared much more

intuitive and also could be more social. Grandma would often like to share her food and was much more likely to eat when those around her were eating.

However even still, it was difficult to get that consistent engagement depending on food taste and mood throughout the day. My lightbulb moment was the ‘treat’ format, as I quickly learned this was pretty much universally appreciated around the care home and if I had a box of chocolates or some sweets everyone would want a handful and be much more engaged

This gave me idea to create a solid form of hydration in the format of a treat and I developed the first prototype of Jelly Drops, which was so popular with my Grandma that she ate 7 drops in the first 10 minutes, a brilliant result comparing it to the amount of time it would have taken me to persuade her to drink the equivalent.

The Solution 

Since being backed through the Alzheimer’s Society’s innovation accelerator programme and launching to the public in 2020, we’ve supported over 70,000 people living with dementia with their hydration and it’s been amazing to see so many people enjoy the product as much as Grandma did and also hear many of positive stories from carers and family members about how such a simple idea has made a big difference.

We’ve also worked with a number of NHS trusts and care homes over the years and have a very close and engaged community giving us really insightful feedback which have developed Jelly Drops into the award-winning format which have now been upgraded to provide B-complex vitamin to support overall health as well as hydration.

One  care home we work with, did a trial showing that using Jelly Drops throughout the day resulted on average in a 250 ml boost to people’s hydration and these were people that

were over struggling to meet a minimum threshold of about 1500 ml a day. During that period it helped them get over that threshold way more frequently than the previous month where they fell short of that threshold 20 times.

We’ve also had lots of customer feedback that Jelly Drops have been helpful to many other people with challenges staying hydrated, from elderly people and autistic people to people recovering from illness or undergoing chemotherapy. This has galvanised us in our mission to continue innovating in this space to  build a more caring and inclusive world for those living with dementia and others underserved by conventional products. If we can bring a smile between caregivers and individuals and encourage some engagement and connection at the same time, that’s a huge bonus.

A huge part of Jelly Drops success has been driven by our community of professional and family carers who spread the word to others they think need to know about us.

For further info on Jelly Drops: www.jellydrops.com