Association between oropharyngeal dysphagia, oral functionality, and oral sensorimotor alteration

Objective: To evaluate whether the oral functionality and the oral sensorimotor alterations are associated with oropharyngeal dysphagia in community-dwelling older persons and long-term care older residents. Methods: An exploratory study with 265 independent older persons of the southern state of Brazil. The diagnosis of dysphagia, as well as the condition of the oral sensorimotor system, was assessed by a speech-language therapist and the oral health status by a dentist. Poisson Regression with robust variance was used to calculate the crude and adjusted Prevalence Ratios (PR) and their respective confidence intervals of 95%. Results: The mean age was 73.5 (±8.9) years, women represented 59.2% of the sample. The frequency of dysphagia in the studied population was 45.3% (n = 120), being more frequent in the long-term care older residents (62.5%; n = 75) than in the community-dwelling older persons (37.5%; n = 45). Individuals with four or more oral sensorimotor alterations (PR = 2.01; 95% CI 1.27–3.18), as well as those who presented a non-functional oral status (PR = 1.61; 95% CI 1.02–2.54) presented a higher frequency of dysphagia. Subgroup analysis indicates the same trend of results, when stratified by community-dwelling older persons and long-term older residents. Conclusion: A non-functional oral health status and oral sensorimotor alterations are associated with a higher prevalence of oropharyngeal dysphagia.