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Stroke is the fourth leading cause of death in American and a leading cause of adult disability.

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Stroke is the fourth leading cause of death in American and a leading cause of adult disability. Stroke or other known as a “transient ischemic attack” occurs when a blood clot blocks an artery or a blood vessel breaks, interrupting the blood flown to an area of the brain. These characteristics cause a loss of cerebral function. (NSA, 2014) When brain cells die during a stroke, abilities controlled by that area of the brain are lost. These abilities include speech, movement and memory. How a stroke patient is affected depends on where the stroke occurs in the brain and how much the brain is damaged. (NSA, 2014) Stroke rehabilitation starts on admission to hospital and continues after discharge; the aim is to restore a level of …show more content…

(Hughes, 2011) When a stroke occurs each of these stages could be affected as a result of neurological and muscular changes. Swallowing problems can increase risk or morbidity and mortality, as well as risk of aspiration pneumonia where food or fluids pass into the airway. Some ways to treat dysphagia would be swallowing therapy and changing of diet. Most post-operative patients will be placed on a strict puree diet to assess feeding. Gradually they will rise back up to a regular diet. Most circumstances require approval from the therapy department but it’s up to the nurses or the nursing assistants to inform therapy about changes in swallowing. After assessing a patient and you can tell that there is some difficulty in swallowing then they should be placed on thickened fluids to ease the swallowing process. Thickened liquids are common practice in the management of dysphagia as they are easy to implement by nursing staff awaiting formal assessment by therapy. (Hughes, 2011) Other factors that can help treat dysphagia in a stroke patient would be positioning. You need to make sure that the patient is always sitting in an upright position. Positioning the patient correctly is crucial because of physical and neurological changes that occur after stroke, such as reduced muscle tone or paralysis which can obstruct the airway and result in aspiration. Proper management of dysphagia in stroke patients can

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