SWALLOWING PROBLEMS IN THE NURSING-HOME - A NOVEL TRAINING RESPONSE

Various studies suggest that between 50% and 75% of nursing home resid ents have some difficulty in swallowing. Some of these residents are a ssessed and treated by speech pathologists, but many are managed by nu rsing staff without specialist input. A training program called Swallo wing... on a Plate (SOAP) has been developed by the Centre for Educati on and Research on Ageing and the Inner West Geriatrics and Rehabilita tion Service to help address swallowing-related problems in local nurs ing homes (Inner West of Sydney, Australia), The training program teac hes nursing staff how to identify, assess, and manage swallowing probl ems, including making appropriate referrals. Several new instruments w ere developed specifically for this program including two assessment c hecklists, a set of management guidelines, and a swallowing care plan. Evaluation of the program-including 3 months follow-up-showed it to b e highly successful, A stand-alone training resource has been produced for wide distribution to help staff implement the program as a perman ent aspect of their nursing care. This paper describes the development , content, presentation, resource, and evaluation of the above program .