Relationship between pneumonia and swallowing function in elderly

Abstract

Purpose: Anatomical and physiological changes due to aging decrease the efficiency of swallowing and increase the risk of aspiration pneumonia. One of the underlying causes of recurrent pneumonia is swallowing dysfunction, with aspiration. This study aimed to compare the swallowing function in elderly patients with and without pneumonia and to investigate its association with malnutrition. Methods: A total of 44 elderly individuals with 22 aspiration pneumonia history (age=73.00±7.93 years) (study group) and 22 without aspiration pneumonia history (age=70.00±6.39 years) (control group) were included in the study. The swallowing function was evaluated using the Swallowing Ability Function Evaluation (SAFE) and water-swallowing test. Nutritional assessment was performed using the Turkish version of the Mini-Nutritional Assessment. Results: Decreased swallowing ability was observed in 59.1% of the study group and 9.1% of the control group (p<0.001). While the study group had severe disorder the 22.7% of the oral phase and 31.8% of the pharyngeal phase, the control group had no severe disorder. However, there was a 9.1% moderate disorder in the oral and pharyngeal phases in the control group (p<0.001). There was a relationship between the nutritional assessment results of the study group and the oral (r=0.498, p=0.018) and pharyngeal phases of SAFE (r=0.622, p=0.002). Conclusion: Our study showed that the swallowing function is affected in the elderly with a history of pneumonia. It was also observed in the elderly without a history of pneumonia. For this reason, a detailed swallowing evaluation must be performed both elderly patients with and without pneumonia, and a protective swallowing rehabilitation program should be developed through an interdisciplinary approach.