AusACPDM Mealtimes Study Day

The Academy is to be congratulated for its innovation in supporting this day, which provided information, inspiration and the opportunity to brainstorm around the needs of practitioners providing support to people with mealtimes issues across the spectrum, from tertiary health through to community settings.

Presentations were grouped within four topic areas:

• Service delivery (Read the discussion summary)
• Research directions (Read the discussion summary)
• Participation support needs (Read the discussion summary)
• Treatment interventions (Read the discussion summary)

After hearing about current research and service delivery within the topics, participants had the opportunity to participate in discussion/focus groups in relation to them. Read highlights taken from the presentations and discussion groups.

Themes from the feedback, in addition to great appreciation, were requests for more research presentations and for further discussion opportunities.

Keynote Address
Professor Sheena Reilly, the Keynote speaker, provided a very thought provoking and stimulating presentation, describing case studies of four children where aspiration was an issue and the outcomes experienced following decisions to commence or maintain oral intake or new textures. Professor Reilly’s very effective presentation invited the audience to speculate on what they may have recommended and outcomes they may have expected – and then looked at the real outcomes that eventuated. In two of the four cases, the children experienced negative outcomes. In one case, where the overwhelming opinion supported commencement of a new oral intake, there were catastrophic health outcomes for the child, while in the other, a recommendation not to continue with oral intake would have meant denying this to a child for no reason – her continued oral intake over a number of years led to no health difficulties. Sheena’s presentation very effectively highlighted the complexities involved and the dearth of evidence currently available to help guide recommendations and decisions where aspiration issues are involved.

"Great to network and focus on this complex area of intervention."

"Liked how presentations were broken into four sessions with closing focus group discussions."

"One of the best, most applicable, even inspirational forms of professional development events I’ve been to."