What is Dysphagia ?

 

Dysphagia is a medical term for difficulty swallowing. This basically covers any difficulty relating to swallowing either solid food/liquid/both, as well as issue with chewing itself. It is very often to hear that people with this condition describe that they feel then food goes to the "wrong way", resulting in them to cough repeatedly during the meal time.

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What causes this condition ?

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Dysphagia could be caused by variety of factors, either nerve issues, muscles issues, which will impact the strength and coordination when swallowing. However it is also important to rule out mechanical cause for dysphagia, such as malignancy/cancer in oesophagus, etc. Common conditions that could cause dysphagia include: dementia (including Alzheimer's disease), stroke, Parkinson, motor neurone disease, certain genetic disorders that affects nerves, Multiple Sclerosis, etc. Whilst it is mainly affecting on elderly population, but certainly some young cohort are also affected as well.

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What are the complications of dysphagia ?

 

Many people are unaware that they have dysphagia in the initial phase. Thus they develop condition, which we call silent aspiration. It means the food and drink silently go into the lungs instead of oesophagus when swallowing, resulting in recurrent infection, mainly in the chest, which we call Aspiration Pneumonia. Once dysphagia worsens, they would cough during meal time, and slowly had difficulty to take adequate meals and nutrition, resulting in weight loss and malnutrition.

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What are the treatment of dysphagia ?

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The treatment for dysphagia will depend on the underlying cause. It is very common for these patients to be put on special consistency diet, which is normally thicker in consistency than normal food, so they could swallow the food easier, preventing malnutrition. Advance-Meal revolutionise such products, as it is not only safer and easier for patients with dysphagia, but also maintains excellent taste and nutritional content for them.

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Source:

1. Smithard DG, Smeeton NC, Wolfe CD (January 2007). "Long-term outcome after stroke: does dysphagia matter?". Age and Ageing. 36 (1): 90–94.

2. Brady A (January 2008). "Managing the patient with dysphagia". Home Healthcare Nurse. 26 (1): 41–46, quiz 47–48.

3. Sleisenger MH, Feldman M, Friedman LM (2002). "Sleisenger & Fordtran's Gastrointestinal & Liver Disease", 7th  edition. Philadelphia, PA: W.B. Saunders Company. pp. Chapter 6, p. 63. ISBN 978-0-7216-0010-9.