Improvement of the Dietary Stage on Dysphagia in Geriatric Hospitals

Lee, Ji Eun; Lee, Eun Jeong

Abstract

OBJECTIVE
Currently, there are no established dietary guidelines for patients with swallowing difficulties in Korea. Therefore, this study was conducted to develop an organized set of dietary guidelines listing simple yet diverse ingredients that are safe for consumption and have high nutritional quality. METHOD: Ninety patients with swallowing and masticatory dysfunction admitted in hospitals A and B were enrolled in this study. The initial study phase encompassed a 6-month period at each site from May 2016 to June 2017. The patients fed according to the dietary guidelines developed in this study were observed. The before- and after-care variances were observed by measuring the patients' weight, and TLC as well as the levels of serum albumin and food intake. This observation was based on the classification of swallowing difficulty and masticatory dysfunction into four scales. RESULT: The before- and after-care weight measurements of the study patients revealed a shift from 48.60±10.17 to 49.32±10.23 kg, and a change in the BMI from 20.04±3.91 to 20.33±3.93. The variances were deemed statistically significant, indicating that the nutrition index of the administered diet was adequate. An analysis of the types of food intake of side dishes and snacks before- and after- dietary administration per study revealed 3.58±1.01 to 4.19±0.83 and 2.77±0.98 to 3.49±1.21, respectively.
CONCLUSION
The food intake level and the weight and BMI of patients in both hospitals increased during the 1-year study period. Furthermore, increasing the dietary level from the third to the fourth tier on an institutional basis enabled a systematic configuration of dietary formulations for each stage of this disorder.