Background This study examined risk factors for dysphagia, a common and serious condition in patients with head and neck cancer, and the association between severity of dysphagia and survival. Methods Chart reviews were performed on patients diagnosed with head and neck cancer between January 2001 and April 2003, who had dysphagia diagnoses or swallowing evaluations. Regression analyses determined factors associated with dysphagia and the association between observed survival and severity of dysphagia. Results Almost 50% of the 407 patients had dysphagia. Risk factors included advanced stage, older age, female sex, and hypopharyngeal tumors. The most severe dysphagia ([L.] nil per os or “nothing by mouth” status), which was associated with lower survival rates, was the strongest independent predictor of survival. Conclusions Swallowing problems should be considered when determining appropriate cancer-directed treatment and posttreatment care. Because of dysphagia’s high incidence rate and association with survival, a speech-language pathologist should be involved to ensure routine diagnostic and therapeutic swallowing interventions.

Although children with language impairments, including those associated with reading, usually demonstrate deficits in phonological processing, there is minimal agreement as to the source of those deficits. This study examined two problems hypothesized to be possible sources: either poor auditory sensitivity to speech-relevant acoustic properties, mainly formant transitions, or enhanced masking of those properties. Adults and 8-year-olds with and without phonological processing deficits (PPD) participated. Children with PPD demonstrated weaker abilities than children with typical language development (TLD) in reading, sentence recall, and phonological awareness. Dependent measures were: 1) word recognition; 2) discrimination of spectral glides; and 3) phonetic judgments based on spectral and temporal cues. All tasks were conducted in quiet and in noise. Children with PPD showed neither poorer auditory sensitivity nor greater masking than adults and children with TLD, but did demonstrate an unanticipated deficit in category formation for non-speech sounds. These results suggest that these children may have an underlying deficit in perceptually organizing sensory information to form coherent categories.

With the rapid increase in the elderly population, there is a simultaneous increased need for care provided by family caregivers. Research in the field of head and neck cancer has indicated that caring for patients with dysphagia can impact a caregiver’s quality of life. Given that many older adults present with dysphagia, one can assume that their caregivers are equally, if not more greatly, affected. The purpose of this systematic review was to examine all relevant literature regarding the caregiver burden in caregivers of community-dwelling older adults with dysphagia. A review of relevant studies published through April 2018 was conducted using search terms related to dysphagia, caregiver burden, and older adults. The search yielded 2331 unique abstracts. Of the 176 abstracts that underwent full review, four were accepted. All reported an increase in caregiver burden due to presence of dysphagia in care recipients. Worsening feeding-related behaviors were associated with burden, and the use of feeding tubes was more frequently associated with “heavy burden”. The presence of dysphagia in community-dwelling older adults is a factor leading to an increased burden among caregivers. Although aspects of dysphagia play a role in the caregiver burden, the specific reasons for the increased burden are unknown. Clinicians should be aware of dysphagia as a source of the burden, and future studies should further define the relationship between dysphagia and the caregiver burden in order to develop comprehensive approaches to care.

An obesity preventive intervention program for preschool families, Healthy Balance, was tested in 2 sequential pilot trials. The first pilot tested the original and translated group intervention in a heterogeneous population (65 families), and the second tested the feasibility of a culturally adapted version for Latinx immigrant families (27 families). No significant study 1 intervention effects were found. However, in study 2, there were significant improvements in parent body mass index, neck circumference, and blood pressure. These studies suggest that targeting family system change and tailoring the intervention for Latinx immigrant populations is feasible and has the potential to improve obesity-related biomarkers.

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