Journal
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL DIRECTORS ASSOCIATION
Volume 16, Issue 8, Pages 697-701Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC
DOI: 10.1016/j.jamda.2015.03.020
Keywords
Dementia; dysphagia; nutrition; aspiration pneumonia
Categories
Funding
- Max und Ingeburg Herz-Stiftung, Hamburg, Germany
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Objectives: To evaluate influences of disease severity and food texture on prevalence and type of dysphagia in hospitalized geriatric patients. Design: We screened for dysphagia in 161 geriatric inpatients with different forms of dementia and 30 control patients. Measurements: Signs of aspiration were registered with 3 different food consistencies (water, apple puree, and slice of an apple) and the latency until the first swallow was documented. Setting: Geriatric department of an academic teaching hospital in Hamburg, Germany. Results: Compared with the controls, patients with dementia more often showed signs of aspiration. In the patients with dementia, signs of aspiration occurred more frequently with water (35.6%) than with a slice of an apple (15.1%) or apple puree (6.3%). We observed an inverse relationship between Mini-Mental State Examination score level and the suspected rate of aspiration, as well as with the length of latency until the first swallow of puree. Conclusions: The prevalence of dysphagia is high in patients with dementia, especially in patients with moderate to severe cognitive impairment. The relationships observed in this study encourage screening for dysphagia and adapting meal consistencies to prevent aspiration in patients with dementia. (C) 2015 AMDA - The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available