Effect of Home Based Swallowing Exercise in Stroke Patients With Dysphagia

Dysphagia is a common problem in post-stroke patients and greatly impaired quality of life. Among them, the strength of tongue and lip muscles played a key role in the oral phase of swallowing and many stroke survivors suffered from these muscles weakness. Iowa oral performance instrument (IOPI) is a standardized portable device that can be used to quantify tongue muscle strength, thus allowing the clinician to set the level of resistance necessary to achieve optimal gains in strength, and also providing visual feedback of performance to the patients to guide training. In this study, we use Videofluoroscopic Swallowing Study (VFSS) to screen for the stroke patient suffering from dysphagia and recruited them into the trial. They then participated in a home based resistance-training program using the tongue depressor, 1 time everyday and each time consisted of 30 repetitions, totally 4 weeks. Various tongue strength variables and subjective scale were obtained before and after the intervention. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effect of the home based swallowing therapy in the post stroke dysphagia patients.

Inclusion Criteria:Acute stroke within 1 year, videofluoroscopic swallow study revealed abnormalitiesMini-Mental Status Examination >20, could cooperate swallow therapyExclusion Criteria:Already known dysphagia before stroke eventMalocclusion or severe facial palsyLocalized oral lesion interfering swallowing