[Background] In clinical settings for eating and swallowing disorders, "jelly" and "thickening agents" are used as a means of rehydration. We have developed Reset Gel®, which has new characteristics, and its clinical use is progressing. However, it is difficult to conduct clinical evaluations during the development stage. Therefore, we thought that an evaluation tool that allows healthy people (developers) to compare products is necessary. Therefore, we constructed a sensory evaluation system and attempted to visualize the physical properties by mapping.
[Method] When constructing the evaluation system, evaluation terms were selected from candidate terms by performing multivariate correlation. In addition, the sensory evaluation results of the commercial product and Reset Gel® using the constructed evaluation system were subjected to principal component analysis and cluster analysis, and the texture characteristics of each product were visualized by mapping them two-dimensionally.
[Results] The following terms were selected for evaluation: spreadability, softness, elasticity, juiciness, graininess, cohesion, residual sensation (oral cavity), and coating sensation (pharynx). Cluster analysis of the evaluation results divided the results into a total of five categories, three of which were mainly commercial jelly products, and the remaining two contained thickening agents and Reset Gel®. It was revealed that the Reset Gel group had a higher score for "softness" than the jelly group, and a higher score for "cohesion" than the thickening agent group.
