How+to+decide+on+optimal+diet+for+the+patient?

While it is important that the Speech and Language Pathologist has a working knowledge of the textures and different food types within each texture in the NDD, the NDD alone will not guide the clinician in tems of choosing an appropriate diet for the patient.The Speech and Language Pathologist must decide this by using information gleemed from the clinical and instrumental assessment and their own clinical judgement. The task force behind the NDD found that when looking for a fairly systematic way to begin choosing an appropriate diet for a patient with dysphagia ,some speech and language pathologists foud that some form of rating scale helped them when prescribing a diet for patients with swaloowing difficulties,(American Dietetic Association,2002). Of course in saying that a systematic rating scale might help in planing a diet, it is defiitely not intended to mean that this process is easy or automatic.Planning a diet for a patient wth dysphagia is a multifactorial process that includes among other things the patients preferences and rights, their cognitive status, their ability to incorporate compesatory maneuvers. The Task force did find however that the "Dysphagia Outcome and Severity Scale ", appeared to have the best correlation to the solid food texture levels of the NDD, and can fuctionaly help the clinician decide what what National Dysphagia Diet is appropriate for this patient?,( American Dietetic Association, 2002).

The Dysphagia Outcome and Severity Scale