CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Laryngorhinootologie 2019; 98(S 02): S343
DOI: 10.1055/s-0039-1686609
Poster
Phoniatrics/Pediatric Audiology

Are medical thickeners neutral in taste?

B Lehnert
1   Abt. Phoniatrie und Pädaudiologie, HNO-Klinik, Greifswald
,
V Gonstein
1   Abt. Phoniatrie und Pädaudiologie, HNO-Klinik, Greifswald
,
S Schulz
2   EU-FH Medica-Akademie, Campus Rostock, Rostock
› Author AffiliationsDie Andickmittel wurden von den Firmen zur Verfügung gestellt, die Firmen hatten keinen Einfluss auf Studiendesign, -durchführung, -auswertung und -publikation.
› Further Information
Also available at
 

Introduction:

Thickeners are used in dysphagia therapy if and when patients have unsufficient control over liquids in their mouth. Thickeners are a well established for of therapy and a number of medical thickeners are on the market. Among the desirable properties of a thickener is neutrality in taste. Can we assume neutral taste in those products or do some taste better then others?

Methods:

8 different medical thickeners were provided by their manufacturers who were not involved in the study otherwise. 38 healthy students of logopedics compared randomized pairs of the products diluted in mineral water. All comparisons were performed in a blinded manner. 224 votes were evaluated in a probabilistic Bradley-Terry model. Overall significance was tested by a loglikelihood test. Order effects (does the first one taste better then the second one?) were evaluated using the model.

Results:

There was highly significant difference in how good the thickeners tasted (p < 0.0001) and order did not play a systematic role (p = 0.48).

Conclusions:

Some thickeners tasted worse than others, suggesting that patients with bad compliance should be offered to try a different product. The products investigated here reflect only a part of the German market. Our results can be used for power analyses for further studies.



Publication History

Publication Date:
23 April 2019 (online)

© 2019. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Georg Thieme Verlag KG
Stuttgart · New York