2000 Volume 4 Issue 1 Pages 28-32
Hardness，adhesiveness，and cohesiveness of 27 kinds of diets for patients with dysphagia were examined as a preliminary study to determine the relationship between swallowing function and characteristics of diet texture． Those foods which were clinically considered to be suitable for patients with swallowing impairment were selected as materials．
In form， these foods were divided into 6 groups：consistent sol，thicker sol，inconsistent thicker sol，mixture of sol and gel，consistent gel，and inconsistent gel．Hardness was distributed from 1.87×102 N/m2 to 3.51×104N/m2， and adhesive energy ranged from 4.66×10 J/m3 to 1.14×103 J/m3， with cohesiveness ranging from 0.08 to 0.99． Most of these foods were under 2×104N/m2 in hardness and below 2×102J/m3 in adhesiveness． These results proved that soft and thinner foods were preferable for dysphagia patients． Diets for patients with dysphagia may be subdivided into small groups based on further analysis of their textures．
