Application of Thickened Component in Elderly Patients with Dysphagia

With the increasing number of special consumers in China,the market demand for thickened foods is increasing rapidly. How to supervise and manage it scientifically,and how to research and develop personalized products to meet the specific nutritional needs of special groups of people,not only a matter of great concern to production enterprises and consumers,but also a very urgent task for regulatory authorities. In this paper,the epidemiology of dysphagia in the elderly,the evaluation methods of dysphagia,the use of thickend foods in the elderly patients with dysphagia,the factors influencing the viscosity of thickening fluid,the classification criteria and evaluation methods of food texture grade were elucidated. Proposed that the product design should be based on the texture characteristics of food and the corresponding relationship between products with different texture characteristics and patients with different severity of dysphoagia,which is expected to become the future research direction of thickened foods.