The Edinburgh Feeding Evaluation in Dementia (EdFED) Scale is a
psychometric screening tool to assess difficulty with self-feeding in older people with
dementia
Dementia is a disorder which manifests as a set of related symptoms, which usually surfaces when the brain is damaged by injury or disease. The symptoms involve progressive impairments in memory, thinking, and behavior, which negatively affe ...
. It was developed at
The University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 1582 ...
by
Roger Watson and
Ian Deary.
The original EdFED was composed of 11 items and was validated using
Guttman scaling but a subsequent version was validated using
Mokken scaling and was composed of only ten items.
The scale measures aspects of the level of intervention required by carers (for example, verbal prompting), observations related to feeding (for example, spillage) and behavioural aspects (for example, refusal to eat). The items are scored on a three-point
Likert type scale from ‘0’ (never) to ‘3’ (often) observed items on the scale. In 2014 Alzheimers Disease International highlighted the utility of the EdFED in their ‘’’Nutrition and Dementia’’’ report.
The EdFED has been translated and validated in several languages including Chinese (Taiwanese and Mainland)
and Italian.
The scale was used as an outcome measure of the first
randomised controlled trial
A randomized controlled trial (or randomized control trial; RCT) is a form of scientific experiment used to control factors not under direct experimental control. Examples of RCTs are clinical trials that compare the effects of drugs, surgical t ...
of an intervention to alleviate feeding difficulty
and has been used as an outcome measure in a national study of feeding difficulty in older people with dementia in Canada;
In this study it was shown that a 1-unit change in the EdFED score is equivalent to a loss of 63
kilocalories and 3
grams of
protein
Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, respo ...
per day.
References
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Cognitive impairment and dementia screening and assessment tools