Oropharyngeal Dysphagia After Hospitalization for COVID-19 Disease: Our Screening Results.
Maria Raffaella Marchese, Carolina Ausili Cefaro, Giorgia Mari and 5 others
PMID 34165644WHAT IT FOUND
Eight of 117 post-COVID patients had a positive swallowing screen.
Among those eight, four had abnormal swallowing-related quality of life, but seven did not reach the aspiration-risk cut-off. The EAT-10 screen was used to choose who needed further assessment.
Key findings
01In 117 patients selected after hospitalization for COVID-19, 8 had a positive EAT-10 swallowing screen.
02Of the 8 positive-screen patients, 4 had an abnormal Swal-QoL score and 7 did not reach the GUSS cut-off for aspiration risk.
03The one patient with a GUSS score of 21 underwent FEES, and the paper states no signs of dysphagia were shown.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample was selected: patients had to be older than 18 and younger than 80, have BMI under 30, have two negative SARS-CoV-2 tests, and have no prior dysphagia, neurologic or psychiatric disease, mental deficit, intubation before the SARS-CoV-2 hospitalization, or certain surgeries, diseases, or immune-mediated conditions. Screening happened on average 82 days after symptom onset and 73 days after hospital admission, so it may miss swallowing problems that appear earlier or later. Only 8 patients had a positive screen, so the quality-of-life and aspiration-risk findings rest on a very small group. There was no control group or comparison with patients without COVID-19, so the study cannot show that COVID-19 caused the swallowing symptoms. Most positive-screen patients did not reach the aspiration-risk cut-off, and only one patient had FEES, so the study cannot say how many had true aspiration or needed treatment.
Declared interests
The paper names Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore as the funder.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the 7% positive screen as proof that COVID-19 caused dysphagia or that all post-COVID patients need swallowing therapy. The study screened only 117 selected patients, had no control group, and only 8 patients were positive; 7 of those 8 did not reach the aspiration-risk cut-off.