Dysphagia Continues to Impact Recovery at One Year After Stroke-An Observational Study

Dysphagia is one of the most common medical complication after acute stroke, which can impact hospital stay and discharge outcome. Here we sought to study the predictors and 1 year outcome of patients with acute post stroke dysphagia.

Single centre hospital based observational study of all acute ischemic stroke patients who had undergone formal swallow assessment within 24 hours of admission with a 1 year completed follow-up were recruited by screening of medical records. Clinical, imaging and swallow assessment details were extracted as per proforma. 3 month and 1 year outcome were assessed using modified Rankin scale. Correlations were made with clinical and imaging findings, in hospital worsening and dysphagia at discharge with short and long term functional outcome.

We had 469 patients included in our study, with a mean age 61. 04(±19. 09) years and median NIHSS 9. 52(IQR 4). 56. 75% of AIS patients had some degree of dysphagia at admission. We found that admission stroke severity and in-hospital worsening were independently predictive of severe swallow dysfunction at discharge. At 3-4 weeks after stroke, only 20.27% of the patients with moderate-severe dysphagia at baseline has persistent swallow deficits requiring modification of feeds. Dysphagia continued to have a significant association with outcome at 1 year, independent of admission stroke severity.

Majority of patients with acute post stroke dysphagia recover well within 3-4 weeks after stroke. Patients with post stroke dysphagia had more in hospital neurological worsening. Post stroke dysphagia continued to have an impact on functional outcome up to 1 year after stroke.