Frequent gagging or drooling when eating might indicate that elderly people are losing swallowing function, said Pei Yu-cheng (裴育晟), a Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital doctor.
Pei, who is director of the hospital’s Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, told the first Taiwan and Japan Symposium on Swallowing Disorders and Nutritional Care that according to Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics data, the population of elderly people in Taiwan was 3.52 million in June, or 14 percent of the total, and is expected to exceed 20 percent by 2026, the threshold of a “super-aged” society.
Neuromuscular function declines with age, resulting in degradation of chewing and swallowing functions, as well as loss of appetite, malnutrition, sarcopenia (degenerative loss of skeletal muscle mass quality), dehydration and other disorders, he said, adding that eating difficulties in elderly people leading to malnutrition is gaining attention.
Swallowing difficulties are not unavoidable, as elderly people can still eat safely with instructions from a speech therapist and proper oral neuromuscular training, he said.
Pei urged people to seek medical advice if they notice frequent coughing, gagging or drooling when they or others eat or drink, as they might be early signs of swallowing difficulty.
Chen Mei-hui (陳美慧), a speech therapist in the department, said that staff would evaluate a patient’s tongue strength, jaw movement and coordination of oral motor muscles to determine whether they can eat safely.
People can receive better nutrition by eating normally than with tube feeding, Chen said, adding that the ability to eat safely helps maintain strength and living quality, and helps prevent sarcopenia.
She cited the case of an 88-year-old man surnamed Yang (楊) who had always been healthy until he had a stroke last month, resulting in paralysis on his right side and difficulty swallowing.
He often gags on food and drools, so he began feeding through a nasogastric tube, Chen said.
However, after a month of oral neuromuscular training, Yang is now able to eat soft foods orally, she said.
As many elderly people who return to eating without a tube complain that soft foods are not as tasty, family members can tenderize meat by marinating it with sliced pineapples for about 30 minutes, Chen said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift