Early Identification of Dysphagia Post Pediatric Ischemic Stroke

Pediatric stroke has received increasing attention over the last few decades. Dysphagia is commonly reported following acute stroke in adults, leading to negative health complications such as pneumonia and mortality; however, dysphagia is not a well understood outcome post-stroke in pediatrics. This dissertation sought to explore early identification of dysphagia, with a focus on pediatric stroke, and was comprised of four studies: 1) a meta-analysis of high-level evidence on the benefit of dysphagia screening in adult stroke, 2) a systematic review of available literature on pediatric stroke and dysphagia; 3) a retrospective chart review to identify frequencies, co-occurrence and associations of dysphagia, motor speech and language impairment in pediatric stroke; and 4) a prospective survey of dysphagia experts to determine opinion of relevance and feasibility of assessment items to move forward in the development of a dysphagia screening tool. This dissertation confirmed the benefit of dysphagia screening in the adult stroke population. Further, this work identified dysphagia as a relatively common impairment post-stroke in the acute phase in pediatrics, similar to adults, and especially highlighted the need for standardized assessment protocols in the younger population. Lastly, this dissertation identified a list of assessment items to move forward in the development of a pediatric dysphagia screening tool post-stroke. Future work is indicated and discussed to further advance this under-researched area of dysphagia and pediatric stroke.

Department dc:contributor.department

Rehabilitation Science

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Sherman, Victoria

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Martino, Rosemary

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1807/106405

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:utoronto.scholaris.ca:1807/106405