The Japanese Journal of Dysphagia Rehabilitation
Online ISSN : 2434-2254
Print ISSN : 1343-8441
Original Paper
Relation between Dysphagia and Disease-Specific Quality of Life for the Frail Elderly
Hiroyuki MORISAWAKojiro KAGAWA
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JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

2017 Volume 21 Issue 2 Pages 83-91

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Abstract

Objectives: With the increase of the frail elderly, the quality of life (QOL) of the frail elderly with dysphagia is attracting attention. In past studies, it has been pointed out that dysphagia reduces the QOL of the elderly needing nursing care, but the current QOL scale is limited to the standard for general people. However, in order to measure QOL specialized in dysphagia, it is necessary to use a diseasespecific QOL scale. The present conditions are uncertain about what kind of symptoms are involved in QOL. Also, the guidelines of the intervention are not shown. Therefore, we performed the study for the purpose of clarifying an association between dysphagia and disease-specific QOL of the frail elderly in this study.

Methods: The subject of this study is 64 elderly people (average age 79.3±7.3 years) from support required help 1 to long-term care insurance level 2 who used outpatient rehabilitation over the long-term. The investigation used an interview survey about a basic attribute, a matter of the meal, ADL, DRACE, SWAL-QOL, SWAL-CARE and life satisfaction. We distributed two groups in the presence or absence of aspiration risk and examined the results of SWAL-QOL.

Results: It was confirmed that the aspiration risk was present in 45.3% of subjects. Through the presence or absence of aspiration risk, the difference was barely found in the order of the lower item of SWALQOL. However, it was confirmed that the group with the aspiration risk had significantly decreased QOL in burden, eating desire, fear, mental health, communication, SWAL-QOL fatigue. Furthermore, it was confirmed that QOL decreased as much as symptoms (saliva, oral cavity, and pharynx) increased.

Conclusion: 1. Aspiration risk is present in 45.31% of this study’ s subjects. 2. About the order of the lower ten items of SWAL-QOL, they do not have a major gap in order through the presence or absence of risk. 3. In the group with aspiration risk, disease-specific quality of life decreases. 4. It was found that the symptoms such as saliva and oral cavities, the pharynx reduced quality of life. It is thought that the approach to the swallowing function is indispensable to plan QOL maintenance and improvement.

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© 2017 The Japanese Society of Dysphagia Rehabilitation
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