James F.

Dela Torre
BSN-IV

Reaction Paper

Nutrition is a basic human need that changes throughout the

life cycle and along the wellness. Food provides nutrition for the
body and the mind. Proper nutrition is needed in the body for
growth, development, activity, reproduction, lactation, health
maintenance, and recovery from illness or injury. Any eating
disorder will surely affects the nutritional status of an individual.

Dysphagia or difficulty swallowing is one of eating disorders

that are common among older adults. It may be caused by
neurological disorders like strokes, dementia’s and other diseases.
As I read this article, their goal is to improve the quality of
dysphagia assessment and management, specifically to identify
nurses’ self-assessment of their knowledge of dysphagia and
confidence in caring for patients with dysphagia, assess the effects
of the interactive educational program and educational outreach on
nurses’ knowledge retention over time, and increase nurse-initiated
dysphagia referrals to SLP over time.

In my opinion, this dysphagia assessment and management

program has the potential to decrease the incidence and
complication of pneumonia, malnutrition, and other adverse
outcomes. The program evaluation for increasing SLP referrals as
mentioned in the article should include retrieval of charts of
individuals with selected neurological disorders because they
compromise a majority of patients with dysphagia. This will help
determine whether SLP screening request are being made
appropriately. The research should examine the incidence of
pneumonia and aspiration pneumonia in patients who have
dysphagia, weight changes, and the length of stay in relation to
dysphagia management program implementation. Nurses need to be
[patient advocates because they are most likely to be the first health
care team members to observe dysphagia. Early detection and
management of dysphagia is critical to improving outcomes for
hospitalized older adults. Health care facilities instituting protocols
for dysphagia management require multiple strategies to sustain
change. The OMRU provides a useful framework for knowledge
transfer, outcome evaluation and continuous improvement planning
for the care of patients at risk for dysphagia.