Dysphagia

[Marcelo_Godinho]

Greetings from Brazil. Need help! My mother is 86 years old, diagnosed with Alzheimer's, she is having dysphagia. Is there any medication? What part of the brain is affected?

[NF52]

Greetings from Brazil. Need help! My mother is 86 years old, diagnosed with Alzheimer's, she is having dysphagia. Is there any medication? What part of the brain is affected?

Welcome Marcelo,

Please accept my heartfelt sympathy for your mother's difficulty with feeding and swallowing, and her diagnosis of Alzheimer's. Dysphagia is a term that speech-language pathologists use to cover a number of different issues. Those can include difficulty recognizing that food or liquid is in the mouth, problems with chewing, difficulty with tongue movement to get food to the back of the throat, difficulty with liquids, or with some types of solids, choking on food, and aspirating food (having it go down the trachea, instead of the esophagus, leading to a risk of aspiration pneumonia.)

I am guessing that either a doctor or speech pathologist providing care to your mother gave that diagnosis. That person might be able to provide more details on exactly what seems to be not working well with your mother. She or he could also talk with you about options to provide her nourishment, the sense of tasting food, feeling full and reduce any anxiety she may have about eating or drinking. Unfortunately, dysphagia seems to be a part of the gradual progression of Alzheimer's in some people. This is the only reference I found to studies seeking to determine the area of the brain involved in dysphagia in Alzheimer's:

swallowing disorders of the AD group may result from sensory impairment in relation to dysfunctions in the temporoparietal areas

Dysphagia in Patients With Dementia: Alzheimer Versus Vascular

If your mother is in the early stages of Alzheimer's, it is possible that a speech therapist could identify types of food and strategies that would make it easier for her to enjoy food and maintain nutrition. From an admittedly quick review of articles, however, it appears that for people with advanced Alzheimer's, it does not improve their quality of life, their comfort or their lifespan to take the step of using tube-feeding or IV feedings.

As someone whose mother also had some difficulty with food before her death from Alzheimer's at age 86, I wish you the comfort of knowing your mother feels your love, values your presence in her life all these years, and cherishes the gift of life she was able to give you.

[CoachJD]

Welcome! I really can't add must to what NF52 shared with you about your mother's situation, but I can share her desire to reach out with care and concern and warmly welcome you to this community. I hope you find information and inspiration here, starting with a search of the WIKI and the PRIMER-such great resources for so many diverse things. And I hope you'll tell us more about you and your journey.

[slacker]

Hi Marcelo;

I'm sure that your English is much better than my Portuguese, but even so, medical vocabularies can be challenging in translation. CoachJD has mentioned some helpful resources for those interested in helping with cognitive decline; I wanted to share the links with you. The Primer (intro to ApoE4 allele, biochemistry, and possible prevention strategies) is found here; The wiki, which contains another organized deeper dive in many helpful subjects, is found here.

[bladedmind]

I have mild dysphagia. Strong dysphagia can prevent the swallowing of any food, and even of water. It can come on after a stroke (perhaps she has vascular dementia?). It can be dangerous. It can’t be treated on a do-it-yourself basis, it has several causes and forms, you must consult a gastroenterologist.

Liquid diet can be a short-term fix. Depending on the condition, one of several medications might be tried (I’m not going to list them because I’m not a doctor and the condition can be serious). Botox injections or balloon dilation at the lower esophageal sphincter are moderate interventions. More invasive surgeries are the next step.

These days gastroenterologists have great diagnostic techniques. When I was troubled by this in the mid-1990s they didn’t and (as so often) some physicians who didn’t know how to treat it classified it as a psychiatric disorder.