What is Dysphagia?

Dysphagia is the umbrella medical term for someone who experiences eating, drinking and swallowing difficulties, whether in infants, children and adults, regardless of the medical reason or disease responsible¹.

What causes Dysphagia?

Dysphagia can be caused by many different conditions²:

• Neurological Disorders (e.g. Learning disabilities, brain trauma)
• Progressive Neurolical Disorders (e.g. Parkinson’s Disease, Alzheimer’s Disease or Dementia, Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Motor Neurone Disease (MND), Huntington’s Disease)
• Mechanical or Obstructive Diseases (e.g. Head and Neck tumours, surgery)
• Gastroesophageal reflux disease
• Ageing
• Respiratory Conditions (e.g. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease)

Consequences of Dysphagia

Consequences can occur when dysphagia is not correctly treated and so management is required. If adequate nutrition does not occur this can lead to:

• Weight loss and malnutrition³
• Dehydration⁴
• Urinary Tract Infections (UTI)⁴
• Increased hospital length of stay⁵

Managing Dysphagia via Dietary Modification

As part of the treatment of dysphagia dietary modification may occur. Dietary Modification is dependant on if the person is safe to consume any food or fluid orally and, if so, what degree of dietary modification is required⁶. Dietary modification could therefore occur as addition of thickener into the diet, or in more severe cases with tube feeding⁷.

Thickener

To learn more on the dietary management of Dysphagia using Thickeners, please see this e-learning https://www.nutricia.co.uk/hcp/academy/dysphagia-and-stroke/fundamentals-of-dysphagia-using-nutilis-clear.html

Tube Feeding

To learn more about Tube Feeding, please see this e-learning https://www.nutricia.co.uk/hcp/academy/tube-feeding/enteral-feeding-and-tube-care.html

The content on this page is kindly provided by Nutricia.