CCRI Seminar Series – ‘How clinical practice, ergonomics, engineering and design methods have interacted in the development of a dysphagia tool, influenced its function and design and aided its development into a commercial reality’ with Professor Alaster Yoxall (ADMRC)
Please join us on Wednesday 08 March 2023 for our next CCRI-wide seminar as part of the Culture & Creativity Research Institute Seminar Series, where we will be hearing from the ADMRC‘s Professor Alaster Yoxall.
Woman with fluid thickness tool – courtesy of Professor Alaster Yoxall
How clinical practice, ergonomics, engineering and design methods have interacted in the development of a dysphagia tool, influenced its function and design and aided its development into a commercial reality
Dysphagia (difficulties with swallowing) has been associated with high case fatality and poor functional outcomes and puts patients at risk of aspiration, pneumonia, dehydration and malnutrition. Dysphagia is a highly prevalent clinical condition affecting up to half of people with stroke 60–80% of individuals with neurodegenerative diseases, 10–30% of adults aged 65 years and above and over 51% of institutionalized elderly patients.
Current practice has frequently involved modification of diet and fluids. Liquids are commonly thickened by adding a commercial thickening agent to the drink to increase the consistency. The level of thickness of the fluid required by each patient varies. Some patients require only a slightly more thickened fluid than normal to prevent aspiration, whereas other patients require their fluids to be at the consistency of, for example, custard. Variability of consistency of the fluids given to patients in busy hospital wards and care settings is a frequent occurrence and is often given little thought by the care givers. This lack of consistency may contribute to the patient experiencing medical complications and delayed hospital discharge.
Over the last four years with two tranches of funding from the Abbeyfield Research Foundation, a diverse team from Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Trust, the ADMRC and AWRC have developed a tool that can easily identify the various fluid thicknesses, quickly, cheaply, will work in a care home or residential home setting and most importantly reduces user error.
This presentation looks at how clinical practice, ergonomics, engineering and design methods have interacted in the development of the tool and influenced its function and design leading to its development into a commercial reality.
CCRI Seminar Series – How clinical practice, ergonomics, engineering and design methods have interacted in the development of a dysphagia tool, influenced its function and design and aided its development into a commercial reality with Professor Alaster Yoxall
Wednesday 08 March 2023, 1300-1400
Held online
If you’d like to come along please contact ! RIS Culture & Creativity RI Enquiries.
Alaster Yoxall is a Professor of Packaging Ergonomics in the Art, Design & Media Research Centre (ADMRC), involved in the ‘Inclusive Design’ of packaging for over 12 years. Alaster was the UK’s technical expert in the development of ISO 17480 Packaging Accessibility guidelines and has extensive experience in measuring people’s capabilities, observing people opening packaging and developing solutions. Alaster is currently involved in a number of projects working with academia, business and healthcare professionals to improve packaging accessibility, and particularly interested in how older people and people with disabilities consume food and drink.
About the CCRI Seminar Series
We are currently relaunching our successful seminar series, continuing the regular insights into our researchers and the research we do in the Culture & Creativity Research Institute we explored with our previous C3RI Seminar Series.
If you are interested in giving your own seminar about your research or would like to volunteer to hold a seminar session more geared towards staff development, please let us know at ! RIS Culture & Creativity RI Enquiries. You can find out about future seminars on the CCRI Impact Blog pages for 2022-2023.
It is our aim to record our research seminars and we will make recordings available shortly afterwards on the staff intranet, in order to create an archive of our speakers and seminars.
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