Swallowing Disorders in Patients with Stroke

Swallowing disturbance often causes by stroke and may predispose patients to malnutrition and dehydration, as well as increases the risk of such complications as suffocation and aspiration pneumonia. As an initial evaluation, the water swallowing test can be easily carried out, but not all of the aspiration can be excluded. Therefore, videofluorography (VF) and videoendoscopic examination (VE) of swallowing should be performed to find a safety method of oral intake for providing visualization of the pharynx and larynx dysfunction. Clinical severity scale is important because once the severity is determined, the treatment strategy is also known. Swallowing training can be divided into indirect training without food (basic training) and direct training with food (eating training). In general, it is important to select conditions and training diets that are easy to swallow and have a low risk of aspiration while using indirect training and direct training that aim at gradually improving the level of oral intake