Tthe Longitudinal Effectiveness of a Nurture Swallow Exercise Program (Nsep) on Nursing Home Residents’ Health: Evaluation Using Innovative Non-Invasive Device

Our previous research has demonstrated that nurture health is the core theme for older nursing home residents. As many (50-75%) residents in nursing homes tend to have swallowing problems, an evidence-based, web-based nurture swallow exercise program (NSEP) is vital to maintain or improve residents’ health. The overall objective of this three- year study is to evaluate the longitudinal outcomes of NSEP on elderly residents’ health by using an innovative non-invasive swallow function assessment device. In the first one-and-a-half year, a Portable Non-Invasive Swallowing and Respiration Assessment Device (PNISRAD) will be evaluate the concurrent and predict validated via comparison with other swallowing function instruments (EAT10 and FOIS) and device (tongue pressure), as well as one- year prevalence of pneumonia and the nutrition status of 60 non-nasogastric tube and 60 nasogastric tube nursing home residents. In the next one-and-a-half year, a longitudinal quasi-experimental study will be carried out in order to understand the effectiveness of the web-based NSEP program on the health of elderly residents and the trajectory of adherence change over time (baseline, 1 month, 2months and 6 months). The researchers will conduct the 6-week web-based NSEP (which includes tongue muscle strength, vocal cord and modified shaker exercise) on the experiment groups, and compare their outcomes with those of the control groups using automated computerized blocked randomly assign nursing homes. The outcome variables will include health status (GDS, pneumonia incidence, nutrition, swallow function (PNISAD, tongue pressure, EAT10 and FOIS)) and the trajectory of adherence to the program. The sample size of each group will be 30. Generalized estimated equations (GEE) analysis will be used to understand the long-term effects of each variable. The research findings can serve as a non-bias and non-invasive device in assessing the swallow function in nursing home residents. Furthermore, the NSEP developed in the final stage of this research may aid the development of programs targeting the health of high-risk populations in Taiwan.

Project ID:PC10908-0024
External Project ID:MOST109-2314-B182-060