The Mokken scaling procedure (MSP) applied to the measurement of feeding difficulty in elderly people with dementia.

Feeding difficulty increases as the condition of dementia progresses. Compensating for this difficulty in feeding is time consuming for lay and professional carers and is the cause of many practical and ethical problems. The current work reports on an analysis by means of Mokken scaling, of the pattern of accumulation of feeding difficulty--described as obstinacy or passivity--in a sample of 182 elderly people with dementia in a psychogeriatric setting. The existence of a cumulative, unidimensional scale was demonstrated which may have some clinical value. Further lines of investigation to validate the scale are suggested.