Neuro Anatomical Correlation of Oropharyngeal Swallowing Revisited in Cerebrovascular Stroke Patients

Overview

Stroke, main cause of disability in adults, is thought to be the primary cause of swallowing difficulty (dysphagia). Dysphagia is one of the common physical condition among patients with stroke, affecting the large number of stroke patients in the world. It is reported that the occurrence rate of post-stroke dysphagia (PSD) is varies widely, ranging from 19% to 81%, the reason may be associated with the type of stroke, the assessment tools, the timing of the assessment, and so on .Dysphagia is associated with pneumonia, malnutrition, dehydration, increased mortality, and poor long-term outcome. It has been shown that early detection of dysphagia allows for immediate intervention and thereby reduces morbidity, duration of hospitalization, and overall health care costs. Oropharyngeal dysphagia (OD) can have a high impact on the general health of affected patients and can produce two main types of complications in patients with post stroke: (1) those caused by impaired efficacy of swallow, present in 25%-75% of patients, which leads to malnutrition and dehydration and (2) impaired safety of swallow which leads to tracheobronchial aspiration that may cause pneumonia in 50% of cases. Both OD and aspiration are highly prevalent conditions in patients with stroke . Dysphagia is more common in hemorrhagic stroke compared with ischemic stroke, so far, most studies have focused on the latter, presumably due to its higher incidence .The recognition of a brain lesion pattern associated with oropharyngeal dysphagia could help to distinguish those patients in need of more in-depth evaluation and the subsequent adoption of preventive measures. However, it is difficult to predict which patients are susceptible to developing swallowing alterations depending on neuroimaging findings. However, the findings have been inconsistent, mainly due to simplification in the classification of brain injuries into a small number of groups, or to the different methods employed in assessing swallowing function