Improvement of chewing and swallowing risks in community-dwelling older adults using texture-modified food

Abstract

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES Understanding the mechanism of chewing and swallowing food is important when creating a proper diet for older adults. This study investigated whether texture-modified model foods can reduce the difference in chewing and swallowing parameters between healthy community-living young and older adults. SUBJECTS/METHODS In total, 35 older and 20 young adults (mean age: 75 and 25 years, respectively), matched for sex and number of teeth, were recruited and their unstimulated salivation and tongue pressure were measured. Simultaneous assessment of chewing and swallowing characteristics was conducted using surface electromyography and a videofluoroscopic swallowing study while the participants ingested 8 g of model food with one to four levels of hardness. RESULTS The average tongue pressure and salivation among older adults were 61% and 49.7%, respectively, of the corresponding values observed in young adults. The older adult group used significantly ( P < 0.05) increased muscle force with more chewing cycles ( P < 0.05) than the young adult group, which was maintained even when consuming foods with the lowest hardness, although without chewing. However, the age effect on oral processing time existed only for the hardest foods. Swallowing difficulties among older adults were demonstrated by the significant increase in vallecula aggregation time. The total food intake duration was significantly ( P < 0.05) longer in older adults than in young adults, regardless of food hardness. CONCLUSIONS There were measurable differences in the process of chewing and swallowing food between young and older adults, which can be improved with food hardness control. Adjusting food hardness may help food intake in healthy older adults.

Rheology for Safe Swallowing 3

“…Unstimulated salivation determined from the weight of gauze kept for 5 min in the mouth was 2.13 (g/5 min) and 1.06 (g/5 min) in young and old groups respectively. Park et al 313) inferred that the sensitivity to food texture changes was lower in the older adult group than in the young adult group, which is consistent with recent finding 314) . Puleo et al 314) developed a method to measure human sensitivity to graininess, using cocoa-based creams as real tested food.…”

“…Five years later, the same research group 313) challenged again this problem to understand the difference mastication behaviour in young and elderly. .…”