Swallow it whole

Abstract

One of the major concerns of oral medicines is patient's ability to swallow. It was reported that 4 of 10 of adults struggle to swallow medicines. Notably, in the older populations this difficulty is often enhanced by dysphagia or dry mouth. Coating oral medicines with polymers is a common method to improve swallowing of the tablets. We carry out the clinical study to examine swallowability of tablets with different coatings in comparison with uncoated tablets. Moreover, our research looks into the texture and overall mouthfeel of the tablets. The study was designed according to the standard rules of sensory analysis. We aim to compare the influence of variables like time to swallow or amount of used water, on the swallowability of the tablets. Additionally we try to evaluate the attributes of mouthfeel and use them to predict the acceptability of bespoke tablets.