Hospitalisation in Geriatrics

Swallowing disorders - or oral dysphagia (OD) - are identified as a cause of malnutrition. They gradually lead patients to withdraw certain foods from their diet, leading to progressive dietary imbalances, or increased cardiovascular risks. Two European societies (the European Society for Swallowing Disorders and the European Union Geriatric Medicine Society) have defined recommendations that include raising awareness of OD, the use of screening scores, preventive measures, diagnostic standardization and interventions implemented (re-education, adaptation of textures). We recently reported the results of the DYSPHAGING Pilot Study that validated the feasibility of a standardized care path including a systematic screening of OD and the implementation of preventive measures in geriatric wards. DYSPHAGING Preferences is a three-step research program designed to develop (step 1) a specific device to evaluate food preferences in geriatric populations, adapted from the CFTPQ, evaluate its test-retest reliability (step 2), and perform a cross-sectional study to explore individual differences within the older population depending on their geriatric characteristics and, among them, on the presence or not of OD (step 3).