Dysphagia Diets: IDDSI Replaces NDD
Standardized Diets:
IDDSI Replaces the National Dysphagia Diet
by Karen Sheffler, MS, CCC-SLP, BCS-S of SwallowStudy.com
You may hear doctors and health care professionals use terms like: “Soft,” “Mechanical Soft,” “Chopped,” “Ground,” “Blended smooth,” etc, but what does it mean? Ambiguous terms without standardized definitions lead to dangerous trays being given to patients. For example, many doctors think that “soft” means fully pureed! Read more about why standardization of diet labels and definitions matters.
Krisi, love this! We’ve started doing our own tests at Children’s LA so I loved hearing about how others are addressing this as well. Thanks so much!
This is a wonderful collaborative framework! We can better objectify our honey, nectar and pudding consistencies into a 1-4! It was fun to download the descriptors and follow the drips, mashes and bite sizes criteria. This gives an objective consistency change for those kids with small increments of change.