Reliable predicting factors for post-stroke dysphagia – Our experience

Dysphagia affects more than 50 % of stroke survivors. The most common consequences of post-stroke dysphagia are malnutrition, dehydration, aspiration pneumonia, choking, limited quality of life, increased mortality and morbidity rate. Patients with post-stroke dysphagia should be identified as soon as possible so that special measures can be taken to avoid these consequences. The objectives of our study were to evaluate the prevalence of post-stroke dysphagia in a tertiary care hospital, to analyse the reliability of predicting risk factors for dysphagia and to determine the stroke locations and brain regions respectively connected with post-stroke dysphagia. We included 207 patients who presented with acute stroke and were admitted to Department of Neurology – Stroke Unit from September 2016 to September 2017. Forty-three percent of patients had post-stroke dysphagia. We investigated patient's age, gender, arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus, atrial fibrillation, previous statin therapy, severity of stroke and localisation of stroke as possible predicting factors for post-stroke dysphagia.

Our results showed that the only reliable predicting factor for post-stroke dysphagia was the location of the brain lesion, which according to our study were Brodmann areas 4, 8, 24, 30 and pons lesions.