Background: The aim of this study was to compare spontaneous swallow frequency analysis (SFA) with clinical screening protocols for identification of dysphagia in acute stroke.
Methods: In all, 62 patients with acute stroke were evaluated for spontaneous swallow frequency rates using a validated acoustic analysis technique. Independent of SFA, these same patients received a routine nurse-administered clinical dysphagia screening as part of standard stroke care. Both screening tools were compared against a validated clinical assessment of dysphagia for acute stroke. In addition, psychometric properties of SFA were compared against published, validated clinical screening protocols.
Results: Spontaneous SFA differentiates patients with versus without dysphagia after acute stroke. Using a previously identified cut point based on swallows per minute, spontaneous SFA demonstrated superior ability to identify dysphagia cases compared with a nurse-administered clinical screening tool. In addition, spontaneous SFA demonstrated equal or superior psychometric properties to 4 validated, published clinical dysphagia screening tools.
Conclusions: Spontaneous SFA has high potential to identify dysphagia in acute stroke with psychometric properties equal or superior to clinical screening protocols.
Keywords: Dysphagia; acute stroke; screening; swallow frequency.
Copyright © 2014 National Stroke Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.