Abstract
The number of the handicapped inmates who started tube feeding because of frequent aspiration pneumonia increased year by year. Therefore a new team started to examine a care system so that inmates may live humanly by evading aspiration pneumonia and having meals through their mouths as long in days as possible. According to papers giving the inmates who can not swallow freely a meal which is just chopped normal diet rather causes aspiration. And the team came up with abolishing chopped food which had been used for 40 years from the founding of the facility and introduced form-intact soft diet( below as soft diet). In May 2008, dieticians, nurses, and care professionals, as the main members, built a soft diet project team and it estimated the effect of soft diet. 1) Licensed cooks developed soft diet which looked like normal diet and was as hard as it could be smashed with a tongue or gums. They made cooking manuals for soft diet so that any cook could cook it. 2) On helping for eating, care professionals adjusted the size of soft diet by cutting or smashing with scissors or a fork to the physical condition of the inmates after showing it to them, which has enhanced their QOL due to the prevention of aspiration and appearances of food. 3) The project team decided to disuse chopped food and devised cooking method and care for eating. It reduced suffocating ratio from 58 . 3% to 32 . 8% of the inmates who had a high risk of aspiration pneumonia because of frequent chokes. 4) In April 2008, to begin with, a course of additional soft diet was supplied, and gradually the number of the courses was increased. Since October 2008, a meal which consists of entirely soft diet has been supplied to all the inmates who need soft diet. In June 2008 during the trial period and in March 2009 after the full-dress practice the project team sent out questionnaires to the soft diet eaters and the care professionals and surveyed the opinions of all the inmates about the feeling of satisfaction in November 2008, which showed good results. This time it brought good results that the staff of various occupations discussed from their respective viewpoints as well as health seminar. Then the dieticians gained very good stimulus through the involvements of the various staff and reconfirmed the importance of eating through a mouth and building a project.
