Abstract
Aspiration which is caused by the ingestion/swallow difficulty has a bad influence upon “the quality of life of people with dysphagia”, for it reduces appetite. In order to prevent aspiration of liquid foods during meals of the people with dysphagia, it is effective to impart viscous resistance to liquid foods following FILS (Food Intake LEVEL Scale) of the object person. However, it is difficult to add a thickener quantitatively to liquid foods in the sites of medical and nursing care, based on the subjectivity and experience of dietitians. Thus, a simple measuring machine that quantitatively evaluates the viscous liquid foods was developed. The obtained value is defined as “Thickness Resistance Value (TRV)” and treated as a unit unique to this machine. In this study, the relationship between TRV and viscosity was clarified by time dependence of drinking water with thickeners added. In addition, a physical property table was created using TRV of thickeners and nursing care foods, and its usefulness was examined. As a result, the time dependence of drinking water with thickeners, a strong positive correlation was confirmed between TRV and viscosity (Water : r = 0.94, Tea : r = 0.98, Juice drink : r = 0.97). From these results, it was clearly shown that TRV obtained a value similar to viscosity regardless of the type of thickeners and drinking water. On the other hand, a physical property table can be expected to serve as a tool both for nutrition guidance and cooperation consisting of multiple thickeners and nursing care foods, for this table is easy to have a common understanding among other professions.
