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May
23
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Large numbers of people have difficulties swallowing medication when it is offered to them in the form of tablets or pills. Dysphagia or swallowing difficulties can affect people of all ages including children although it is most common in older people since they are more prone to the causative illnesses as well as age connected changes in the functions of the saliva glands. Dysphagia is a particularly severe problem in care homes for the elderly where about 1/3 of residents may suffer from it which makes looking after them a more complicated and time consuming process.
Dysphagia consequences can be very serious as it can clearly interfere with treatments proscribed by doctors if the affected person is not willing or not able to take treatments in capsule form. Furthermore there’s a danger that pills ingested orally could cause choking or a blockage of the airway and there’s also a danger that tablets may become lodged in the throat which may result in the incorrect dispersal of the medication to the body and also possible harm to the oesophagus.
Up till now the most common way of managing the difficulties that Dysphagia presents has been tablet crushing in order to make medication easier to swallow. However there are lots of issues related to crushing tablets that may have severe implications and may affect the effectiveness of the medicine. Many pills have a sugar coating on them to make them taste more enjoyable and even though crushing them will not have any kind of impact on the efficiacy of the pill it may make them taste very unpleasant. Pills that have an enteric coating should never be crushed before they are used as the coating is made to keep the pill together in the stomach to either; protect the stomach from the medicine, protect the medicine from the stomach or to release the medicine soon after it has left the stomach.
Fortunately help is on hand for sufferers of Dysphagia and also the people that take care of them. There is now a wider range than ever before of liquid medicines which can be used orally and have precisely the same effect as pills or capsules. Oral liquid medicine is produced to deal with an array of illnesses and diseases such as those affecting the cardio-vascular system and endocrine system and more liquid medicines are being produced all the time. Liquid medicines are easy to swallow for those with Dysphagia and are available in a number of pleasant flavours.