The Investigation Of Dysphagia And Associated Factors In Hospitalized Older Patients

Background:Dysphagia is a major health problem in the elderly.There are various diseases can lead to swallowing disorders,and neuromuscular causes is very common,such as Parkinson's disease,stroke and dementia.Besides,some age-related changes may predispose to dysphagia.Hospitalized older patients are invariably admitted to hospital due to acute diseases with poor self-care ability,so maybe they are more susceptible to dysphagia.However,few studies have focused on exploring the effect of aging on swallowing function and risk factors of dysphagia.Therefore,it is necessary to identify swallowing disorders at the time of hospital admission,so medical staff can give more attention to these people and provide supportive measures to prevent associated complications.Objective:To investigate the incidence of dysphagia among hospitalized older patients and identify associated factors.Methods:This is a cross-sectional research.Data was collected from April 2017 to December 2017,using a convenience sampling method.Patients aged 65 and older were asked to fill out a self-designed demographic questionnaire,the Barthel Index was used to evaluate activity of daily living of patients,swallowing function was screened by Water Swallowing Test.Frailty was measured by the Fried frailty phenotype model.Binomial logistic regression analysis was run to identify the risk factors of dysphagia.Results:(1)Mean age of 386 participants was 74.76±6.19 years(range from 65 to 93 years).The top three diseases that patients suffered were hypertension(64.0%),coronary heart disease(55.2%)and diabetes(33.9%),respectively.The overall incidence of dysphagia was 2.8%,and 28.2%of the participants were doubtable dysphagia.The incidence was even higher for those who were over age of 80.(2)Multivariate logistic analysis showed only four variables were associated with dysphagia significantly,age(P<0.001,OR=1.116),sex(P=0.028,OR=1.729),history of cough after drinking(P<0.001,OR=2.229)and frailty(P=0.001,OR=1.850).Conclusion:We found a high incidence of doubtable dysphagia among hospitalized older patients,further clinical assessment are required to identify whether they have swallowing disorders.In addition to,it showed the effect of aging on swallowing function can not be ignored.Age,sex,a positive history of cough after drinking water and those who were frailty were more susceptible to dysphagia.Therefore,we should pay more attention to these people in our clinical work.