A Clinical Survey of Eating and Swallowing Instructions in Nursing Home Residents: The Relationship between Polypharmacy and Dysphagia

Abstract

Older people often have multiple diseases and take a large number of medications. Nursing home residents also often have feeding and swallowing difficulties. We provide feeding and swallowing instructions to residents in nursing homes, and so surveyed such instructions in nursing homes.

Between April 2017 and March 2020, 241 people underwent feeding and swallowing evaluation and were enrolled in the study. The participants were divided into a control group (taking 5 or fewer medications) and a polypharmacy group (taking 6 or more medications), and a Chi square test was performed to analyze whether there was a significant difference in the presence of suspected dysphagia between the two groups.

The mean ages were 86.4±6.7 years in the control group and 85.6±5.4 years in the polypharmacy group. Dementia was the most common underlying disease in both groups. Most participants ate a dysphagia diet, and only a few participants ate regular food. Suspicion of dysphagia at all stages was significantly higher in the polypharmacy group than in the control group.

Although many nursing home residents have feeding and swallowing difficulties and are prescribed multiple medications, difficulties in swallowing medications have not been addressed. Based on our results, we believe that nursing home residents have some medication difficulties.