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Updated: Sep 30, 2026
Oral Health Assessment by Lay Personnel for Older Adults
Published on: February 2, 2020
Prevalence of impaired swallowing in institutionalized older people in taiwan
Li-Chan Lin1, Shiao-Chi Wu, Hwa Shen Chen
1Institute of Clinical Nursing, National Yang-Ming University, 115 Li-Nong Street, Section 2, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC. lichan@ym.edu.tw
Objectives:
To investigate the prevalence of impaired swallowing in residents at long-term care facilities (LTCFs) in Taiwan.
Design:
A chart review, a structured questionnaire completed at interview, a neurological examination, and a timed swallowing test were used to assess impairment and to gather demographic data.
Setting:
Nine skilled nursing facilities and nine intermediate-care facilities in metropolitan Taipei.
Participants:
One thousand two hundred twenty-one conscious and unconscious residents with a mean age of 77.07.
Measurements:
Impaired swallowing was defined when a subject met two or more of the following criteria: self-report of swallowing difficulty, a score of 2 or more derived from a swallowing questionnaire combined with a neurological examination investigating symptoms and signs of impairment, and coughing/choking during a timed swallowing test or a measured swallowing rate (volume swallowed per second) below the 10th percentile as derived from a gender-based study of an older community in Taipei.
Results:
Of the 1,221 subjects, 356 (29.2%) were fed by tube. The prevalence rates for impaired swallowing as estimated were 97.5% and 31.9% for tube-fed and non-tube-fed subjects respectively, whereas the overall prevalence for tube-fed and non-tube-fed subjects altogether was 51.0%.
Conclusions:
The findings may serve to increase awareness of this problem among healthcare professionals in LTCFs. Further research is contemplated to investigate whether early identification makes a difference in treatment choices and outcomes.
