Title : Age-Related dysphagia in the elderly population
Abstract:
Objective: Dysphagia is an important issue in an aging society. Stroke is the most common cause, but dysphagia can occur without a stroke or underlying disease. Aging itself can cause or aggravate dysphagia and there have been many studies that describe the effect of aging on swallowing physiology. We are already living in an aging society and furthermore population of oldest old, defined as age of 80 or older, is rapidly growing. Among the elderly population, there is a need to examine how the dysphagia in oldest old people differs from others.
Methods: From January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017, patients with aged 60 years or older who underwent VFSS due to dysphagia were included. The WHO and the UN defined the older/elderly criteria as 60 to 79 years old and the oldest old as 80 or older patients. Based on this, a total of 206 patients were divided into two groups. : Group I (60~79 years old, n=135), group II (80~96 years old, n=71). General characteristics were compared between the groups. Among the objective indicators that can be evaluated through VFSS, widely used penetration aspiration scale (PAS) and videofluoroscopic dysphagia scale (VDS) scores were evaluated and compared between the groups. VDS evaluates oral phase and pharyngeal phase separately and each score was added to obtain a total score. The etiologies of dysphagia were classified into two categories: neurologic disorders and non-neurologic disorders. Neurologic disorders included CNS disorders (stroke, brain tumor, neurodegenerative disease, traumatic brain injury, other brain disorders, spinal cord injury) and PNS disorders (NMJ disorders, myopathy and peripheral neuropathy). Non-neurologic disorders included local structural lesions involving the head and neck, poor general medical condition, and unknown etiology.
Result: The male ratio was significantly higher in both groups; the ratio was statistically significantly lower in Group II than Group I. MMSE was significantly lower in group II than in group I. The duration of dysphagia was was shorter in group II. (Table 1)
