2012 Volume 16 Issue 2 Pages 198-202
To care patients with dysphagia, which causes aspiration pneumonia, a department of dysphagia rehabilitation of dental clinic was established 3 years ago in a local hospital. For patients of cerebrovascular accident (CVA) with dysphagia, early intervention and long-term observation in the disorder are important, as well as preventing from complications such as dehydration, malnutrition, and deterioration of dysphagia. On the other hand, some patients experience aspiration after leaving hospital, and there are many patients whose nutrition does not match their present swallowing function, and they are overestimated or underestimated. We assess the swallowing function of patients upon hospitalization using an interdisciplinary team approach and train, yet many patients need continuous follow-up after discharged from hospital. We examined those patients whom we could continuously follow up, and found that many of them improved the way of nutrition intake, and some stopped using PEG after discharged from hospital. In particular, no one showed deterioration of dysphagia. The better the patients could improve their ADL level, the better they could improve the way of nutrition intake after discharge from hospital. Therefore, continuous follow-up after discharge from hospital is thought to be important. It is also important to build a community system to follow up patients who leave or change hospital frequently.
