Effectiveness of Swallowing Exercises on Dysphagia Among Patients with Cerebrovascular Accident

Abstract

Background: Cerebrovascular disease is defined by the World Health Organization from rapidly progressing clinical signs of focal impairment of brain function lasting more than 24 hours or clinical signs of focal neuropathy due to persistent obstruction of the blood supply or intracerebral haemorrhage. Dysphagia, or difficulty swallowing, is a serious, life-threatening condition that affects many patients in the first hours and days after a stroke.Objective:To determine the effectiveness of swallowing exercise on dysphagia among patient with Cerebrovascular accident in experimental group.Methods:A Quasi-experimental research design was adopted for the study with 60 samples who met the inclusion criteria at Saveetha Medical College and Hospital. Samples were selected by using purposive sampling technique and samples were assigned into the experimental group(N=30) and the control group (N=30). The samples are selected by using Gugging swallowing screen scale to pre-test assessment both experimental and control group. The experimental group receivedthe swallowing exercises for 10 minutes per day before breakfast in the morning for five consecutive days. The control group received hospital routine care. The post assessments were done by using Gugging Swallowing Screen at the end of 5th day of intervention to both the experimental and control group. Results:Out of 30 samples in experimental group the pretest mean score of dysphagia among dysphagia was 14.0±3.21 and the posttest mean score was 17.0±3.25. The mean difference score was 3.0. The calculated paired‘t’ test value was found to be statistically significant at p