Review of Food Intake Difficulty Assessment Tools for People with Dementia

Abstract

This review aimed to summarise the validity and reliability of feeding difficulties assessment tools for Individual with dementia. PubMed, PsycINFO, MEDLINE, CINAHL and Scopus were searched for feeding difficulty measurements studies published between 1990 and 2019. Sixteen publications were included and identified three tools: Edinburgh Feeding Evaluation in Dementia (EdFED), Feeding Behaviour Inventory (FBI), and Feeding Difficulty Index (FDI). Results showed the EdFED was translated and tested in various languages. The EdFED and FDI demonstrated high content and construct validity. The FBI was not validated. The EdFED had high inter-rater reliability, with Cronbach’s alpha ranging from 0.75 to 0.90. The FDI and FBI showed moderate inter-rater reliability. Although the EdFED has been tested and widely used, unlike FDI, which addresses multi-aspects of feeding difficulty. The FDI have higher clinical utility but future research needs to test the psychometric properties of FDI to determine its effectiveness in assessing feeding difficulties.