A swallowing assessment study published in 2008* reported that a swallowing “disorder is under recognized by most clinicians and is frequently underreported by patients.” To provide an easy assessment tool and promote better communications between a patient and their clinicians, the study authors developed and validated a self-administered Eating Assessment Tool with 10 easy questions. This assessment tool is named “EAT-10” and has been adopted by many clinics as a means of initial patient assessment and ongoing progress.
The National Foundation of Swallowing Disorders (NFOSD) has taken these questions and dropped them into a survey tool for ease of use. The survey takes less than five minutes to complete.
No personal information is collected during the survey. No name, email address, or demographics. Our purpose in providing you with this tool is to help you articulate the impact of your disorder on your quality of life (QOL) with your family and medical team (primary care physician, speech language pathologist (SLP), etc.).
This tool is not a replacement for tools already in use by your medical team. If they don’t have an assessment tool, this is a great first step. We recommend that you share your results with your clinician such that they can better understand what you are experiencing and how they can help. Problem identification is an early step in the path to a treatment plan and improved outcomes.
The following link will open up the survey. The survey can be taken online and printed out or it can be printed out and filled in on paper.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9D3LFJY
If you have comments about this survey, approach to having that conversation with your family or medical team, or any other feedback, we’d love to hear from you. You can submit a comment by clicking on the comment link on this page.
* Study published in 2008 in the Annals of Otology. Rhinology A Laryngology (ll7(l2):9l9-924). An abstract of the study can be found on the National Institute of Health website at the following URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19140539