The individualized rehabilitation interventions for dysphagia: a multidisciplinary case control study of acute stroke patients.

OBJECTIVE To examine the effects of the individualized rehabilitation programs on the recovery of swallowing during acute stroke. METHODS A total of 88 stroke patients with dysphagia (within 2 weeks of acute stroke) were enrolled and classified into the experimental and control groups (n=44). The control group was treated with conventional rehabilitation program, while a multidisciplinary rehabilitation team was established to offer physical, social and psychological support to dysphagic patient in experimental group. All patients were assessed for their swallowing function by the water swallow test before and after the treatment. RESULTS After the treatment, the experimental group showed a significant improvement in the swallowing function than that of the control group (p < 0.05). Total effective rate improved significantly from 54.5% at control group to 88.6% at experimental group (p < 0.01), where 25 dysphagic patients were completely recovery after the individualized rehabilitation therapy. By contrast, only 12 patients were fully recovered from dysphagia when treatment with conventional rehabilitation training. CONCLUSION The findings of present study showed evidence that the individualized rehabilitation interventions carried out by our multidisciplinary rehabilitation professionals provided effective therapeutic effects during the acute stroke dysphagia compared to the conventional rehabilitation interventions, which may shed light on a bright prospect of the individualized rehabilitation interventions in post-stroke dysphagic patients.