This invention relates to apparatus and method for accumulating a dietary journal in machine readable form.
There has long been a need to conserve the time of nutrition therapists, whose time is very valuable, whether they be doctors or paraprofessionals. In the past, nutrition therapists have had to spend a great deal of time in attempting to elicit from a patient what his diet consists of. It is of course important for proper diagnosis and therapy that the nutrition therapist have a detailed breakdown or profile of the nature and amounts of food consumed by the patient.
Recently, efforts have been made to employ data processing techniques in the production of such profiles. In a supplement to the journal "Circulation", there was published in March, 1968, the National Diet-Heart Study Final Report. This report describes the development of guidelines for food record coding and the use of computers to process the coded information. Another effort along similar lines is described in the Journal of The American Dietetic Association, volume 48, published in 1966, at pages 101-108. Described therein is the use of an IBM 650 data processing system for reduction of data relating to food consumption.
The foregoing efforts, however, have not involved the preparation, on a per patient basis, of a dietary journal in machine readable form. Instead, either such information as the patient may recall has been elicited during occasional office visits or else ordinary journals have been accumulated and then subsequently reduced to machine readable form. The translation of the ordinary records into machine readable form is of course time-consuming and subject to errors.
As to eliciting information from a patient, his memory is likely to be faulty, particularly as to the details of how much food of what food groups he has eaten weeks before his visit to the therapist's office. This leads to extra time being spent to jog the patient's memory and, even worse, to an incomplete and inaccurate profile.
There has further been a need to facilitate the teaching of a proper diet. During the period of time intervening between office visits, typically weeks, the patient is likely to forget how much of each particular food group he should consume.
The foregoing needs with regard to accumulating information as to a patient's oral intake of nutrients are also applicable as to a patient's oral intake of pills and other prescribed medication.