Tidiga tecken på sväljningssvårigheter vid ALS

Sammanfattning: Approximately 80% of all patients with ALS suffer from dysphagia sooner or later during the course of the disease. It is important to find patients with dysphagia in an early stage since weight loss and malnutrition, which dysphagia contributes to, are negative prognostic factors. The main purpose of this study was to identify early signs of dysphagia in patients with ALS, by investigating which clinical evaluation tools that discovers dysphagia in an early stage and see how the swallowing difficulties progress over time. Another purpose of the study was to evaluate the participants’ responses in a self-evaluation questionnaire (EAT-10) and how they correlate with findings on fiberoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing (FEES). Eleven participants with ALS were examined with FEES and non-instrumental tests one to four times over the course of one year. Only five participants were examined three or more times and because of that it is not possible to draw conclusions about the progression of dysphagia. Nine of 11 participants showed signs of dysphagia at the first examination. Test of lip strength was the clinical evaluation tool that identified most patients with dysphagia, followed by swallow capacity test. In an exploratory analysis, both of these tests showed good correlation with results on FEES. Patient responses on EAT-10 were also strongly correlated with the results on FEES.