Medication swallowing difficulties in people without dysphagia

Abstract

Objective: to assess the difficulty in swallowing medications and correlate it with age and gender in healthy adults and elderly. Methods: a total of 439 asymptomatic healthy volunteers (270 females and 169 males), who were not taking any medication on a regular basis, aged from 20 to 84 years, were questioned as for dysphagia, by using the Eating Assessment Tool (EAT-10). Question number five of the EAT-10, specifically, approached the difficulty in swallowing drugs, considering zero as “no swallowing problem” and 1 to 4 as “some degree of difficulty” (4 as great difficulty).The chi-square test (x2) was used for the statistical analysis. Results: a total of 365 (83%) volunteers reported having no difficulty in swallowing medications (89% of men and 80% of women), whereas 74 (17%) reported some degree of difficulty (11% of men and 20% of women)(p = 0.01). These represented 20% of those aged between 20 and 49, and 9% of those aged 50 and over (p = 0.02). Conclusion: in this study, it was observed that both age and gender influence on medication swallowing, a difficulty more frequent among women and young adults. Some degree of difficulty was reported by 17% of the volunteers.

A Difficult Pill to Swallow: An Investigation of the Factors Associated with Medication Swallowing Difficulties

“…This is higher than the prevalence reported by community pharmacy customers in another Australian study (16.5%), 9 polypharmacy patients visiting community pharmacies in Switzerland (22.5%), 35 and a general community survey in Brazil (17%). 6 However, it is similar to a Danish study among adolescents (32%). 7 Even more of our participants (55%) reported having found it difficult to swallow tablets or capsules at some point in their life.…”

“…In the limited range of surveys of the general adult population without dysphagia that have been conducted, the proportion reporting some degree of difficulty swallowing solid oral dosage forms is typically around 15-20%, with numbers ranging from 6% through to 50%. [6][7][8][9][10][11] Importantly, consumers are unlikely to seek advice from a health professional before splitting or crushing their solid dose form. 11 In order to improve their medication management, we are interested in better identifying individuals who are more likely to be at risk of experiencing medication swallowing difficulties.…”

Oral probiotic and its delivery carriers to improve oral health: A review

“…Although this study showed delivering oral probiotics in the capsule had a positive effect on oral candidiasis, more studies are still required to show that the capsule is an effective delivery carrier of oral probiotics. Similar to lozenges, capsules may not be suitable for young children, patients and the elderly with swallowing difficulties [93] (Table 3).…”

Identifying and addressing pill aversion in adults without physiological‐related dysphagia: A narrative review

“…Liu et al (Sydney Swallow and Medicines Acceptabilityquestionnaires),1 Marquis et al determined participant perception of their state of health using a question from the General Health SF-36 questionnaire,21 Souza et al (EAT-10),22 Nativ-Zeltzer et al (PILL-5)25 and Arnet et al (SWAMECO questionnaire) 26. Dorman et al's two studies explored difficulties swallowing SODFs from a different angle, posing open questions to explore the psychological aspects of medicine-taking.…”

“… 16,22,27,31. Lau et al loosely linked difficulty swallowing medication in those taking four or more doses per day, 31 whilst Radhakrishnan et al report that smaller mouth cavity size and high numbers of taste receptors may correlate to reduced confidence swallowing large capsules.…”