Observation of eating skills after stroke: dribbling food and chewing

Abstract

Eating difficulties after stroke are common. The mealtime care of patients is a nursing responsibility, but there are few tools to guide nurses in their assessment of patients' eating skills. In this paper the efficacy of observations of patients eating, as a means of identifying those who have difficulty with dribbling food and chewing, is considered. Twenty patients after a first stroke and 20 general medical patients were observed while eating lunch. They were also interviewed and assessed on eight subtests of the Frenchay Dysarthria Assessment (FDA). In stroke patients, significant correlations were found between the observations and scores from the interviews and tests. Stroke patients dribbled food and had difficulty chewing more often than the general medical patients. The FDA subtest for drooling could be used to screen for patients likely to dribble food.