Dysphagia in Patients With Dementia: Alzheimer Versus Vascular

Patients with dementia develop dysphagia some time during the clinical course of their disease. The aim of this study was to compare the swallowing functions of the 2 most common types of dementia: Alzheimer disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD). Videofluoroscopic swallowing studies of the 2 patient groups were analyzed according to various oral, pharyngeal, and laryngeal variables of swallowing. The results indicate that there are some different patterns of swallowing disorders. The AD patients were significantly more impaired in “oral transit delay over 5 seconds” with liquids (χ2=7.065, df=1, P=0.008), whereas the VaD patients showed more deficits in “bolus formation and mastication” of semisolid food (χ2=4.64, df=1, P=0.039), “hyolaryngeal excursion” (χ2=4.102, df=1, P=0.043), “epiglottic inversion” (χ2=4.612, df=1, P=0.032), and “silent aspiration”…

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