Lets Talk Grub!

Meals are rarely about nutrients or taste alone, they are social events! We gather at certain times of day, with friends and strangers alike, to share these enjoyable experiences. Sometimes one has the pleasure of providing the nourishment, or we have the delight of enjoying dishes made in another’s vision. Whatever the spice blend and produce pairings used, interacting with this platform verifies that this special relationship exists globally. But when meals can potentially become a threat to safety, it can cause people anxiety or to withdraw from these situations.

There definitely is a wrong pipe!

What could go wrong?

People with difficulty or painful swallowing, known as dysphagia, are too familiar with this reality. When not addressed, the condition could increase risk of choking, dehydration, malnutrition, and lung infections. Fortunately, there is hope for people to improve function or learn strategies that lessen the impact of the disorders. Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are professionals that study the mouth and throat structures and their functions in swallowing, as well as in speaking. Following an assessment, SLPs will made recommendations that may change the manner of eating…
*adjusting head or body posture, to redirect flow
*highly coordinated maneuvers, to use other muscles and structures to help compensate
*adjusting intake speed, bite size and order of fluids and solids to
*taking items by mouth or feeding tube

…as well as the diet texture, changing the qualities such as stickiness, need for chewing, and flow rate to make intake safe.

590 million people, or about 8% of the worlds population, are impacted by dysphagia

For many years, these clinicians, along with registered dieticians, have worked to create standard levels of food processing for making patients’ food easier to chew and swallow safely. Unfortunately, there was a lack of consistency, across cities to across the globe; an international survey revealed up 54 unique names for diets and 27 different liquid names. This amount of variation certainly translates to confusion and errors, even deaths. In order to better inform those using altered-texture diets to manage dysphagia, volunteer researchers and care providers have formed the International Dysphagia Diet Standardisation Initiative (IDDSI). With a mission to:

Achieve global dysphagia diet terminology, creating common terminology and common understanding across international borders, across the lifespan, across all professions, and across the all stakeholders to help the care of people with difficulty swallowing (dysphagia)

...this project has been making up serious ground in serving this community.

Solids and fluids are presented on a continuum; I will break down the different levels in future posts

How can the Steemit community contribute?

The IDDSI Framework needs translating/reviewing of translations. Arabic, Dutch, German, Greek, Japanese, Russian, Slovenian, and Vietnamese are available to be downloaded and a link for providing feedback. Thai, Turkish, Hindi, Hebrew, Urdu, Zulu, Portuguese and Marathi are currently in the process of being translated, and you are asked to email the IDDSI group if you are fluent. I think this is an opportunity for the global Steemit community to really shine! Please pass this along to any members that may be willing and able to help.