After a stroke late last year, my 87 year-old grandfather hasn't been doing so hot. After being discharged from the hospital's rehab center, he has been in our care for over two months. Keeping food down has been interesting lately, as he has developed a strong dislike for most foods over the last month and a half since what seemed like another stroke.
In accordance with our observations, credible resources confirm that strokes can cause "altered smell, taste, hearing, or vision".1,2 It seems that there is plenty of material confirming the degeneration of taste, but solutions seem harder to come by, and requiring of diagnosis by a physician, brain scans, etc. which wouldn't be viable right now.
Is there a way to stimulate taste buds, or help the brain recognize taste again?
Edited on Tuesday, March 8: After we heard that one of his somewhat recently prescribed medications might have been causing a bad taste (additional source) in his mouth, we discontinued use about two weeks ago. Now there might be more foods he will tolerate (it's hard to say for sure since we're trying foods we hadn't before), but he still hates others. I haven't found a significant number of sources that seem credible suggesting a correlation, and wonder if it's probably not related.
I know that Health.SE "is not intended as a substitute for individualized diagnosis and treatment by a qualified healthcare provider." He is on hospice, and therefore his insurance won't cover hospital visits, and his finances are quite minimal, so any reasonable advice I can get would be greatly appreciated, and won't really be substitution for professional advice. (Of course, unreasonable advice would also be welcome, given good references.)