GPFC platform

Cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy experience many side effects, including taste disorders. As a result, since food intake decreases and the risk of malnutrition increases, therapies are less tolerated and recovery can be burdened. Taste alterations also negatively affect the quality of life. Obtaining pleasure from food and the ability to maintain social eating habits can be impeded by food aversion and can entail mood disturbances and decreased social functioning. This Twinning action aims to implement the Gastrology & Primary Food Care (GPFC) platform in the Italian context, a digital platform developed by the Center for Gastrology in Leuven(Belgium). GPFC-platform allows mapping the individual profile of the taste perception in patients who experience changes in taste. GPFC also provides screening tools to monitor the nutritional state of patients. Professionals of Italian home care will be trained about the use of the e-platform and the use of all included nutritional screening and assessment tools. By studying the degree of alteration of gustatory, olfactory and trigeminal stimulation and by taste control techniques the trained professionals will be ready to suggest personalized recipes so to make the patients perceive a flavor similar or equal to what they felt before the start of the chemotherapy treatments.