[Characteristics of dysphagic patients in public home care service]

This article discusses the characteristics of dysphagic patients victims of a stroke. The objectives were to identify the profile of patients with dysphagic and measure its association with age, risk factors, episodes of stroke and consistency of food. As a methodology, we used the cross-sectional study sample of thirty patients. Results show that all 17 dysphagic patients were hypertensive and more than half also diabetic (58.82%). All of them had ischemic stroke. There was no association between dysphagic and age, neither with the frequency of stroke episodes. Patients with hypertension and diabetes had higher odd ratio for dysphagic referring to the swallowing of liquids. All of them were elderly with three risk factors (hypertension, diabetes and obesity) and with increased difficulty in swallowing liquids. As a conclusion, it was observed that the nurse needs to be trained to recognize dysphagia and its complications, such as pneumonia and malnutrition.