%0 Journal Article
%T Long-Term Effectiveness of Physical Exercise-Based Swallowing Interventions for Older Adults with Dementia in a Day-Care Center.
%A Chen CH
%A Lin CY
%A Chen CL
%A Chen KT
%A Lee C
%A Yu YH
%A Shih CY
%J Healthcare (Basel)
%V 11
%N 9
%D 2023 Apr 28
%M 37174804
%F 3.16
%R 10.3390/healthcare11091262
%X Swallowing safety is one of the top health concerns of dementia. Coughing and choking (coughing/choking) are signs of impaired swallowing safety. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of regular physical exercise-based swallowing intervention for reducing coughing-choking at the dementia day-care center. This was a retrospective analysis with data from medical records, including age, the clinical dementia rating (CDR), and the frequencies of coughing/choking in ten days (10-day coughing/choking). Those who complied with the exercise programs were assigned to the exercise-based group (n = 22), and those who could not comply were assigned to the non-exercised-based group (n = 7). The non-exercised-based group showed more advanced age and higher CDR than the exercise-based group (p < 0.05). The 10-day coughing/choking showed significant decreases at the 5-month and 19-month in the exercise-based group and at the 5-month in the non-exercise-based group (p < 0.05). Our findings suggested that regular physical exercise-based swallowing intervention effectively alleviated coughing/choking problems of older adults with dementia and its effectiveness was long-lasting. For those who could not comply with exercise programs, noticeably with more advanced age and dementia, the effective swallowing intervention period was short-term.