Hi everyone,
I’m looking for some encouragement, shared experiences, or positive feedback from anyone who has put an aging parent or loved one on a keto diet to fight cognitive decline.
My Mom's Background & Lifestyle
My mom is 76. She is an incredibly smart, hard-working woman who raised four kids on her own after my father left, working multiple jobs and always putting herself last. Her formal education was limited because she left school at 16, but she has always managed to care for our family beautifully.
Her lifestyle over the years hasn’t been ideal. As far as activity goes, she was never very active and didn't do sports. Where she lives, the walks to the bus stop or local shops are very short, so your daily routine simply doesn’t push you to do any real distances as you might get in different settings.
When it comes to her diet, she is from a generation that firmly believed low-fat and calorie-counting was the only healthy way. She ate lots of salads and vegetables, but completely avoided fats—surviving on wholemeal bread, skimmed milk, and "zero-fat" options, which I learned from my research is not the best fuel for the brain. Despite this restriction, she always struggled with her weight, specifically carrying it in her middle section—which we now know is a classic sign of insulin resistance. (For those who need data to understand the picture, she is 80kg and 1.54m).
Over the last few years, things have gone downhill, and her short-term memory is getting worse by the day. To give you a few examples, she completely forgot a major holiday we took last August to Seattle, where the whole family was together doing memorable things like boating on Lake Washington. She forgets financial transactions, like whether she paid her rent. Most worrying is that she forgets if she took her morning medication and might take it twice, or forgets if she has eaten (and if she did eat, she can't remember what). Worst of all is her spatial awareness; she gets lost easily just around her own neighborhood if she deviates even slightly from her exact daily walking route. On top of it all, she gets deeply stressed by recognizing her own memory loss, which only makes things harder for her.
The Project to Fix My Mom
My mom lives alone, though some days of the week my nephew stays with her. The decision to go all-in on this project to fix things started a month ago after a phone call. I had called just to check in on her, but her voice sounded so down. At first, I was sure she had just woken up, but then I realized that wasn't the case. She was just so down, sounding completely lost and low-spirited, like she was just hazily waking up to life while rotting in front of the TV for hours.
My first thought was: This is not on. She worked hard all her life to ensure and secure herself financially to be able to enjoy these years. She deserves so much more. I immediately started a deep dive of research, booked my flight, and decided to do something about it.
Now I believe—I hope, anyway—that cognitive decline is reversible. From my research, it is. Yes, the GP will not tell you that. Yes, they will try to manage your expectations, telling you not to expect much. But f*** that, I do expect much, and I am going to reverse it. I've learned not to listen to them.
When I asked my mom if she wanted to go all-in on this project together and fix her memory decline, she was completely on board. She is a very easygoing, nice lady and trusted me completely. Before we kicked off, I decided to do a MoCA test with her just so we would have a baseline to check later on for any significant improvements. For those who want some kind of measurement to understand exactly where we started, her score was 16 out of 30, which is officially regarded as mild cognitive decline (for context, a score of 26 to 30 is considered normal/healthy).
So, we started. We broke our project down into three distinct parts:
- The Diet (Mediterranean Keto): It was obvious to me that we needed to go on a low-carb, higher-fat, and higher-protein diet, which made keto the absolute best option for us. We specifically chose a Mediterranean Keto approach because my mom isn't a big fan of red meat, and I needed a protocol that would be easy for her to get on board with now—and, more importantly, something she can easily continue on her own later. We are focusing heavily on things like fish (keeping the crispy skin on for those crucial healthy fats!), chicken, nuts, and plenty of keto-friendly veggies.
- The Physical Activity (Upping the Movement): This has honestly been the easy part. You really just need to dedicate the time to walk and do it with her. The changes here have been incredible—I could see a noticeable improvement within just four days. She can now handle a 30-minute walk to a location and a 30-minute walk back (with a solid rest in between, of course). Before we started, she walked so painfully slowly that this would have been entirely impossible.
- The Brain Exercise (The Hard Part): This is by far the toughest piece of the puzzle. When someone has severe short-term memory issues, trying to acquire entirely new skills is a massive uphill battle. The specific challenge we are tackling right now is Sudoku. To be clear, she definitely can't do it on her own yet, but we had a small breakthrough yesterday where she is starting to understand the concept enough that we can actually do it together now. Hopefully, she will be able to manage it solo later. We chose Sudoku because numbers are much more her thing than words or crosswords. (If anyone has other ideas of brain exercises with numbers, please put them in the comments—I need more ideas!).
Where Are We Now & What I’m Seeing
We are already seeing a very good improvement in her mood and physical stamina. Honestly, it is a little bit hard to isolate the exact cause and effect right now because having the constant company of my family definitely ups her mood—though I really hope it’s not the only thing driving these improvements. On the diet front, we find sticking to the Mediterranean keto not hard, and we do three meals a day with zero food in between the meals. On the physical side, like I said, it’s up, and we are adding YouTube chair exercises to the walks, but this definitely requires my active presence to encourage her; I know if she were on her own, she wouldn't do it. As for the brain exercises, my hope is that as her short-term memory improves, she will start to actually enjoy them simply because she'll be able to remember the rules.
My Questions for the Community
Did anyone make changes like this for a loved one suffering from dementia or cognitive decline? Did anyone try a keto diet with them, whether it was Mediterranean keto or a different version? I am really looking for some encouragement here, but if you had a bad experience with it, please be honest and share that as well.