A Study to Assess the Effectiveness of Swallowing Exercises on Swallowing Ability Among Patients with Cerebrovascular Accident in Selected Hospitals

Background: Dysphagia is one of the most frequent symptoms in patients with stroke which is paralysis of throat muscles. This condition can disrupt the swallowing process and make eating, drinking, taking medicine and breathing difficulty.

Objectives: This study was carried out to assess the effectiveness of swallowing exercises on swallowing ability among patients with cerebrovascular accident.

Materials and Methods: The research design selected for this study was pre-experimental design (one group pretest posttest design). The study was conducted in Muthu Neuro Centre, Nagercoil. The investigator selected 30 cerebrovascular accident patients with mild and moderate swallowing difficulty. Non probability purposive sampling technique was used. The tools used for data collection are demographic, clinical data and Modified Mann Assessment of Swallowing Ability scale. Pretest was conducted to assess the severity of swallowing difficulty by using Modified Mann Assessment of Swallowing Ability scale. Then swallowing exercises was demonstrated for 30 subjects with mild and moderate swallowing difficulty. Intervention was done continuously for 7 days in the morning before breakfast. After one week of interventions posttest done with same tool and data were analyzed.

Results: The study revealed that the pretest mean swallowing ability score was 50.46 with standard deviation 12.045 among the cerebrovascular accident patient. The posttest mean swallowing ability score 77.06% with standard deviation 9.54 among the cerebrovascular accident patient. Conclusion: Swallowing exercises were effective among the cerebrovascular accident patients regarding their swallowing ability.