VitalStim electrical stimulation combined with traditional swallowing therapy alleviates dysphagia among Parkinson's patients / 中华物理医学与康复杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the effect of VitalStim electrical stimulation combined with traditional swallowing therapy on severe dysphagia in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Methods In all, 36 PD pa-tients with severe dysphagia were randomly divided into a treatment group and a control group, each of 18. Both groups were given the traditional swallowing therapy, while the treatment group was additionally provided with VitalStim electrical stimulation. Before and 15 days after the intervention, both groups were assessed using the modi-fied Mann assessment of swallowing ability ( MMASA) and standardized swallowing assessment ( SSA) . ResultsAfter the intervention the average SSA score of the control group had dropped significantly, but no significant change was observed in their average MMASA score. However, significant improvement was observed in both the average MMASA score and the average SSA score of the treatment group. Moreover, the cure rate of the treatment group was 47.1％, significantly higher than that of the control group. Conclusion VitalStim electrical stimulation combined with traditional swallowing therapy is effective for alleviating severe dysphagia among PD patients. It is worthy of ap-plication and further study in clinical practice.