Baycrest

Baycrest clients with swallowing and nutritional issues will soon taste test some of the 15 delicious, new recipes developed to enhance their dining experience. The recipes are the product of "Top Chef Dysphagia," an interprofessional education project now in its sixth year involving the Education department, registered dietitians and speech-language pathologists at Baycrest and students from George Brown College's Centres for Hospitality and Culinary Arts and Health Sciences. Each year, three teams are given a case study of a typical elderly person with dysphagia (swallowing issues) and other complex medical concerns and asked to develop recipes for a beverage, appetizer/side, main entree and dessert. Their menu plans are then judged by a panel of experts. This year, a grant from the Helderleigh Foundation allowed project members to standardize 15 recipes for both home and long-term care use and share them at professional and community events. Each recipe was tested and assigned a rating per the International Dysphagia Diet Standardization Initiative (IDDSI) and some will soon be trialled at Baycrest. This inventive interprofessional approach to teaching future chefs, food managers and personal support workers about dysphagia has encouraged students to seek placements at Baycrest and led to the hiring of some students by Food Services. " Both students and clinicians appreciated the opportunity to learn about, from and with each other with the goal of improving the dining experience for clients with chewing and swallowing difficulties. " - Lisa Sokoloff, Manager, Training and Simulation, Education Leadership at Baycrest (pictured above): Roasted beet and squash soup, vegetable frittatas and avocado chocolate pudding are some of the tasty, brain healthy recipes developed for people with dysphagia. Clients benefit from "Top Chef Dysphagia" competition 4

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