Comprehensive Tool to Assess Oral Feeding Support for Functional Recovery in Post-acute Rehabilitation

To determine the influence of the Kuchi-kara Taberu (KT) index on rehabilitation outcomes during hospitalized convalescent rehabilitation.

A historical controlled study.

A rehabilitation hospital.

Patients who were admitted to a convalescent rehabilitation ward from June 2014 to May 2017.

Patients' background characteristics included age, sex, nutritional status, activities of daily living (ADL) assessed using the Functional Impedance Measure (FIM), dysphagia assessed using the Functional Oral Intake Scale (FOIS), and reasons for rehabilitation. The following values before (control group) and after initiation of the KT index intervention period (intervention group) were compared: gain of FIM, length of stay, accumulated rehabilitation time, discharge destination, gain of FOIS, gain of body weight (BW), and nutritional intake (energy and protein).

Mean age was 76.4 ± 12.3 years (n = 233). There were no significant differences in the baseline characteristics of the patients at admission between the control and intervention groups, except for reason of rehabilitation. The intervention group demonstrated statistically higher values for the total (P = .004) and motor FIM gain (P = .003), total (P = .018) and motor FIM efficiency (P = .016), and FOIS gain (P < .001), compared with values in the control group. The proportion of patients returning home was statistically more frequent in the intervention group compared with that in the control group (73.4% vs 85.5%, odds ratio 2.135, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.108-4.113, P = .022). Multivariate analyses indicated that intervention using the KT index was a significant independent factor for increased FIM gain (β coefficient = 0.163, 95% CI 1.379-8.329, P = .006) and returning home (adjusted odds ratio 2.570, 95% CI 1.154-5.724, P = .021).

A rehabilitation program using the KT index may lead to improvement of inpatient outcomes in post-acute care. Further prospective research is warranted to confirm the efficacy of this program.