Do Danh Thang, Ngo Tien Quyen, Doan The Manh, Nguyen Van Quynh
Objectives: To determine the prevalence of dysphagia and evaluate some factors associated with dysphagia in patients with acute cerebral infarction.
Subjects and methods: A prospective, cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted on 220 patients with acute cerebral infarction treated at Military Hospital 110, from June 2023 to March 2025.
Results: The mean age of patients was 65.9 ± 11.02 years, with 71.3% being older than 60 years. The majority were male (75.5%), with dysphagia (71.8%), hypertension (68.2%), and cerebral hemisphere lesions (78.2%). Dysphagia was significantly associated with patients under 60 years old (p = 0.0079), and with patients over 70 years compared to those under 60 years (OR: 3.23; 95% CI: 1.50-6.97; p = 0.0026); with brainstem lesions compared to cerebral hemisphere lesions (OR: 3.55; 95% CI: 1.19-10.55; p = 0.022); between patients with and without communication disorders (p = 0.0155), and with facial paralysis (p < 0.0001). There was no association between dysphagia and patients with and without type 2 diabetes mellitus or with and without hypertension (p > 0.05).
Conclusions: The study showed that patients with acute cerebral infarction have a high prevalence of dysphagia, which was significantly associated with age, lesion location, communication disorders, and concomitant facial nerve (cranial nerve VII) palsy.
