Dysphagia is a medical term for chronic swallowing difficulties. While dysphagia does not exclusively affect the elderly, older individuals certainly have a significantly higher risk of developing swallowing difficulties. As dysphagia is always symptomatic of one or more underlying conditions, its manageability depends on how treatable the original condition is. The good news is that dysphagia as a condition can be managed, even when it’s not curable. We will discuss a few tips below.
Detection and Diagnosis
Swallowing difficulties are symptoms of underlying health conditions. Therefore, the responsible disease or condition must be tested for and verified as a diagnosis by qualified medical professionals before all else. Conditions that can cause swallowing difficulties can be anything from genetic conditions like a cleft lip or palate, to autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases, like myasthenia gravis and Alzheimer’s disease.
In other words, visiting the doctor for a complete checkup is the first step to take towards managing dysphagia. After all possible steps are taken towards treating and/or managing the condition that’s causing swallowing difficulties in a patient, their dysphagic tendencies should no longer be as intense as before. If it’s a curable condition that can be treated successfully, the patient may not even experience any swallowing difficulties at all after the treatment.
Food and Beverage Thickening Gel
As dysphagia patients cannot swallow food or drink water without a significant chance of choking and coughing every time, malnutrition and dehydration are very common side-effects. Using a product like the Simply Thick thickening gel to mix with food, water, and other beverages can significantly lower the difficulties and the pain that’s associated with dysphagia. Thickeners change the texture of food and drinks in such a way that even severely dysphagic patients are able to swallow their nutrition and hydration without the usual difficulties, pain, or fear.
Previously, diabetics with dysphagia had a hard time using thickeners regularly because they were all starch based and starch consumption can lead to blood sugar elevation. The new generation of gum based thickening gels can be used regularly by everyone, including diabetics. Gum-based food and drink thickening gels don’t have anything in them that can raise blood sugar.
Dysphagia Friendly Cooking
As long as you know how to cook for dysphagia patients, it’s possible to cook meals that most of them should be able to swallow without too much difficulty. Check this article for more information on what kind of options there are to choose from if you are cooking for people who have difficulty swallowing solid food.
As we can see by now, it is quite possible for people with swallowing difficulties to eat and drink without losing any nutritional value. There are several ways to go about it, but you don’t really need to choose any one over the other.
We already discussed thickening gels and special recipes, but there’s also the option to mash up high-nutrient meals in the blender. In fact, it’s one of the oldest and most reliable tricks in the book when it comes to solid food intake. Just be extra careful to avoid bones in the mix. As far as the water and drinks are concerned, beverage thickeners are the best way to go.
