A Therapeutic Maneuver for Oropharyngeal Dysphagia in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease

OBJECTIVE: This study investigates resources to provide better conditions for oropharyngeal swallowing for improvement in the quality of life of Parkinson’s disease patients. METHOD: Three men and one woman with an average age of 70.25 years had been afflicted with Parkinson’s disease for an average of 9.25 years. The patients were submitted to a rehabilitation program for oropharyngeal dysphagia after a clinical evaluation of swallowing. The rehabilitation program consisted of daily sessions for two consecutive weeks during which a biofeedback resource adapted especially for this study was used. The patients were then reevaluated for swallowing ability at follow-up. RESULTS: The patients presenting difficulties with swallowing water displayed no such problems after rehabilitation. Only one patient exhibited slow oral transit of food and other discrete oropharyngeal food remnants when swallowing a biscuit. The sample variance was used to analyze the pressure measurements, demonstrating a numerical similarity of the results obtained with the swallowing of saliva or of biscuits (VAR = 4.41). A statistical difference was observed between the swallowing of saliva and biscuits, showing a significant pressure increase at the end of the rehabilitation program (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: The effortful swallow maneuver reinforced by using biofeedback appears to be a therapeutic resource in the rehabilitation of oropharyngeal dysphagia in Parkinson’s disease patients.