Oral Health-Related Factors Associated with Dysphagia Risk among Older, Healthy, Community-Dwelling Korean Adults: A Pilot Study

Most previous studies addressing dysphagia examined individuals who already had diseases causing dysphagia and did not pay much attention to oral health conditions as a risk factor. This pilot study investigated 62 healthy adults aged 65 years or older who were living independently in the community, performed basic activities of daily living independently, and had no history of a causative disease of dysphagia to identify the factors associated with dysphagia risk, especially oral health. The Dysphagia Risk Assessment Scale was used to screen the patients for dysphagia. Hyposalivation was diagnosed by evaluating the unstimulated salivary flow rate, and orofacial muscle strength (anterior tongue elevation, buccinator muscle, and lip strength) was quantitatively measured using the Iowa Oral Performance Instrument. To analyze the factors associated with dysphagia risk, the Mann–Whitney test, Kruskal–Wallis test, and multiple logistic regression analyses were conducted. In the final regression model adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics, the oral health-related factors independently associated with dysphagia risk were buccinator muscle strength, hyposalivation, and subjective masticatory discomfort (p < 0.05). Therefore, our findings suggest that weak buccinator muscle strength, hyposalivation, and subjective masticatory discomfort are valuable indicators for the early detection of dysphagia in older, healthy, independent, community-dwelling adults.