Clinical management of elderly with dysphagia

Dysphagia is the alteration of the safety and efficacy of the swallowing process that prevents the correct transit of food/saliva from the mouth to the stomach, which increases malnutrition, dehydration and pulmonary aspiration and patient's bad prognosis(1). The changes in the act of swallowing related to age are called presbyophogy(6). A highly prevalent affect of self-worthy elderly peoplel between 13-30%), and increasing considerably in hospitalization context (30-47%) for additional causes: mechanical, neurological or iatrogenic, which increases complications or destabilizes swallowing balance. Recently dysphagia it is considered a geriatric syndrome', that challenges the multidisciplinary team regarding prevention and reduction of adverse effects related to hospitalization units of elderly people. One of the main tasks of the healthcare team is the early detection of elderly people with aspiration risk. The objective of this article is present a multidisciplinary protocol of EP with dysphagia in the context of hospitalization in the 'Specialized care unit for the elderly' (SCUE) of Clinica Las Condes. Initially, literature associated with oropharyngeal dysphagia (OD), recent classification, consequences, recommended evaluation methods and specific conditions associated with were viewed. Accordingly, two routes are defined with SCUE'team, Speech language pathologist, Geriatrics, Nursing and futrition. 1) opportune referral criteria of Speech language pathologist for clinical swallowing evaluation and 2) Early multidisciplinary screening and evaluation method of OD and aspiration risk.