Healthy Living Tips, Nutrition And Healthy Living Guide

Stroke Facts: Drinking water poses a real danger to the elderly who have lost the ability to swallow.
A stroke or aging can take away someone’s ability to swallow and when that happens, the necessity of drinking becomes a very real danger.

Stroke Facts: Such patients – usually elderly – are not supposed to drink water because their impaired ability to swallow can cause the water to flow down the windpipe and into the lungs, instead of down the oesophagus and into the stomach. This can cause lung infections such as pneumonia.

Usually, patients are given water that has been mixed with a commercial powder thickener to make it easier and safer to swallow. However, this gelatinous glop can be rather unpalatable.

Now a team at Changi General Hospital (CGH) has come up with more than 60 recipes using fruit, jelly and vegetables to thicken drinks, soups and desserts for these patients.

One of the team members, speech therapist Sajlia Jalil, said: “Patients said that the thickened fluid doesn’t taste like water and they hate it.”

Instead of water mixed with starch, patients can be fed watermelon puree, banana shakes and agar-agar drinks.

About 15 per cent of CGH’s inpatients – about 110 a day – have swallowing difficulties.

The hospital found in a survey that 72 per cent of the patients disliked commercially mixed drink. As a result, many patients became dehydrated from not drinking enough. After they returned home, only 19 per cent would drink the mixture. The rest mostly drank just water, even though it put them at risk of lung infections. Another team member, senior dietitian Alvin Wong, said: “We want to improve patients’ quality of life. Even as you get older, you still want to be eating and drinking… If you have to drink starch water, it’s rather pitiful.” So the team of four speech therapists, two dietitians, a care coordinator, a senior staff nurse, a doctor and two cooks developed fruit purees, shakes and desserts to make drinking more palatable.

Since the end of last year, they have been sharing these recipes, like the one on this page, with caregivers. As a result, 71 per cent of patients now agree to drink these mixes. Ms Soh Ah Kim, 54, whose 91-year-old father-in-law was diagnosed with swallowing difficulties about seven months ago, noted that he barely touches the bottle of thickened water that she puts in his room every day. She said: “Nobody would like to drink that; it looks like glue.” Instead, she adds the thickener to beverages like Milo and tonic drinks – a tip CGH gives caregivers. The team is compiling the recipes into a book to be given to patients and caregivers.

For their efforts, the team bagged an Asian Hospital Management Award in departmental service improvement last month. The award was part of the annual Hospital Management Asia conference held in South Korea from Aug 19 to 20.

Source: LEE HUI CHIEH – The Straits Times Thursday

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