FEEDhd
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Facilitating Effective Eating with DoddleBags: A Single-Arm Acceptability Study Of DoddleBags to Assess Impact on Self-Feeding Behaviours in a Huntington's Disease Population
IRAS ID
342883
Contact name
Callum Schofield
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Hull
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 10 months, 31 days
Research summary
Eating behaviours in Huntington’s Disease (HD) are a subject that has been relatively unexplored in contemporary research. It is very common for people with manifest Huntington’s Disease to experience significant weight loss (Novak & Tabrizi, 2010) but the mechanism by which this occurs appears to be little understood and contested by multiple plausible explanations (Kremer & Roos, 1992; Goodman et al., 2008; Roos, 2010; van der Burg et al., 2011).
This research will assess the acceptability of a proposed solution to the practical barriers that HD creates when eating; namely, the reduced ability of a person with manifest HD to feed themselves easily, safely, and effectively. This study will provide participants with a selection of DoddleBags products. Doddlebags are sustainable specialist feeding pouches, they are reusable zip-loc pouches into which the user can put their own food or drinks, with a spout on the side of the pouch that can then be used for accessing the food or drink within. They are easy to hold and fill, and calibrated for measuring out accurate portions.
We will instruct participants on how to use the DoddleBags products, and encourage participants to incorporate the products into their mealtimes wherever possible. The ease-of-use and suitability of the DoddleBags will be assessed through a food diary and semi-structured interview. The psychosocial impact of the products on the participant will be measured using a small battery of self-report measures.
REC name
Wales REC 5
REC reference
24/WA/0322
Date of REC Opinion
2 Dec 2024
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion