What is a texture, compared with a diet?

A diet says what the food contains (no sugar, no salt…). A texture says how it is prepared: regular, minced and moist, pureed, or a thickened drink. Each resident has one texture and may have several diets.

Which textures does WideCare provide?

The eleven levels of the IDDSI framework, from Thin (level 0) to Regular (level 7). You can add your own in Meals → Configuration → Textures.

What happens if a dish is not available in a resident’s texture?

If the dish is only offered in a coarser texture, WideCare raises a critical alert (choking risk) and refuses to mark the plate as served. If it is only offered in a finer texture, it shows a warning.

Where do the carers see the texture?

On the printed distribution sheet, on each line of the meal round in the care app, and on the resident’s sheet in the app.

Food textures (IDDSI)¶

The texture says how a resident’s food is prepared or their drinks thickened. WideCare follows the IDDSI framework (International Dysphagia Diet Standardisation Initiative): levels 0 to 4 for drinks, 3 to 7 for food. Each resident has one texture; each dish says in which textures it can be served.

The textures provided¶

Level	Drinks	Food	Colour
0	Thin		White
1	Slightly Thick		Grey
2	Mildly Thick		Pink
3	Moderately Thick (drink)	Liquidised (food)	Yellow
4	Extremely Thick (drink)	Pureed (food)	Green
5		Minced & Moist	Orange
6		Soft & Bite-Sized	Blue
7		Easy to Chew, Regular	Black

Regular is the ordinary texture, given by default to every new resident. The others are modified textures: only those are flagged to the kitchen and on the printed sheets.

Setting up the textures¶

Meals → Configuration → Textures lists the textures in IDDSI order. On a texture:

Code — the IDDSI code (TN0, ST1, MT2, MO3, LQ3, EX4, PU4, MM5, SB6, EC7, RG7). It must be unique.
IDDSI Level and IDDSI Kind (Drink or Food).
IDDSI Colour — set from the level; it is the colour of the tray label.
Modified Texture — untick it only for the ordinary texture.
Description — how the kitchen prepares it.
The Residents button lists the residents on that texture.

You can add a texture of your own. Archive a texture rather than deleting it: a texture still given to a resident cannot be deleted.

Giving a resident their texture¶

Open the resident, tab Nutrition, block Diets and Textures.
Choose the Texture.

The nurse can also change it from the Nutrition tab of the care plan: it is the same field, and the change is written in the plan’s history.

Dishes and textures¶

On a dish, Available Textures lists the textures the kitchen can prepare it in. Left empty, the dish is offered in every texture. See Dishes and nutritional values.

For each place laid, WideCare compares the dish with the resident’s texture:

Situation	Result
The dish is offered in the resident’s texture, or in every texture, or the resident has the ordinary texture	Nothing
The dish is only offered in a finer texture (lower level)	Warning: served smoother than needed
The dish is only offered in a coarser texture	Critical alert: choking risk

Choking risk

A plate with a critical texture alert cannot be marked as served, at the desk or in the care app. Choose another dish: Compatible Dishes on the meal service, or Change dish in the care app, only offers dishes without a warning.

Where the texture appears¶

On the printed distribution sheet, next to the diets, when the texture is a modified one.
In the care app, on each line of the Meals screen (highlighted when it is a modified texture), on the resident’s sheet next to the diets, and in the At the table block of the resident’s meal sheet. See Meals and drinks in the care app.

Homes that used the former texture list

The textures of the former list were converted to IDDSI on update: normal became Regular, soft became Easy to Chew, chopped became Minced & Moist, pureed became Pureed (food) and liquid became Thin. The former mashed texture was merged into Pureed (food) and archived, and each resident concerned has a note on their record. Check that each resident’s texture is still the right one. Textures your home created itself are left unchanged.