Age-Related Variability in Tongue Pressure Patterns for Maximum Isometric and Saliva Swallowing Tasks

The ability to generate tongue pressure plays a major role in bolus transport in swallowing. In studies of motor control, stability or variability of movement is a feature that changes with age, disease, task complexity, and perturbation. In this study, we explored whether age and tongue strength influence the stability of the tongue pressure generation pattern during isometric and swallowing tasks in healthy volunteers.

Tongue pressure data, collected using the Iowa Oral Performance Instrument, were analyzed from 84 participants in sex-balanced and decade age-group strata. Tasks included maximum anterior and posterior isometric pressures and regular-effort saliva swallows. The cyclic spatiotemporal index (cSTI) was used to capture stability (vs. variability) in patterns of pressure generation. Mixed-model repeated measures analyses of covariance were performed separately for each task (anterior and posterior isometric pressures, saliva swallows) with between-participant factors of age group and sex, a within-participant factor of task repetition, and a continuous covariate of tongue strength.

Neither age group nor sex effects were found. There was no significant relationship between tongue strength and the cSTI on the anterior isometric tongue pressure task (r = -.11). For the posterior isometric tongue pressure task, a significant negative correlation (r = -.395) was found between tongue strength and the cSTI. The opposite pattern of a significant positive correlation (r = .29) between tongue strength and the cSTI was seen for the saliva swallow task.

Tongue pressure generation patterns appear highly stable across repeated maximum isometric and saliva swallow tasks, despite advancing age. Greater pattern variability is seen with weaker posterior isometric pressures. Overall, saliva swallows had the lowest pressure amplitudes and highest pressure pattern variability as measured by the cSTI.