Smartphone-based Swallowing Monitoring and Feedback Device for Mealtime Assistance in Nursing Homes

As many of the elderly are prone to dysphagia, preventing aspirations during mealtime assistance is a huge concern, especially for institutions operated with limited staff. Two of the main course of actions that are taken usually to prevent aspiration are the altering of bolus consistency and altering of the swallowing posture. To assist prevention of pneumonia, we have been developing a smartphone-based wearable technology that can evaluate swallowing ability in real-time. In this paper we will introduce modified version of Swallwoscope adding a posture detection system and a remote swallowing activity visualisation system to our previous work. We will evaluate the accuracy of the proposed posture detection system and also evaluate the feasibility of our device to determine bolus consistency. We plan to integrate these components in a network-based framework to share the relevant medical information within the community to enhance safety and pleasure of eating.