RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Alternating Motion Rate to Distinguish Elderly People With History of Pneumonia
JF Respiratory Care
FD American Association for Respiratory Care
SP 1644
OP 1650
DO 10.4187/respcare.04609
VO 61
IS 12
A1 Kera, Takeshi
A1 Edahiro, Ayako
A1 Hirano, Hirohiko
A1 Kawai, Hisashi
A1 Yoshida, Hideyo
A1 Kojima, Motonaga
A1 Fujiwara, Yoshinori
A1 Ihara, Kazushige
A1 Obuchi, Shuichi
A1 the TOSHIMA Research Group
YR 2016
UL http://rc.rcjournal.com/content/61/12/1644.abstract
AB BACKGROUND: Under the hypothesis that elderly people in the community may have deficient oropharyngeal dysfunction, the purpose of this case-control study was to compare oral and physical characteristics in elderly people with and without a history of pneumonia and to identify factors distinguishing them.METHODS: In 2014, we examined 1,311 elderly people who agreed to participate in a longitudinal and intervention study for the community-dwelling elderly. We looked at such physical characteristics as body composition, grip power, gait, and balance and at oropharyngeal characteristics, such as alternating motion rate (AMR) in speech and the repetitive saliva-swallowing test (RSST). The subjects were also asked about past history of pneumonia and other morbid conditions. From that information, we extracted 24 subjects reporting to have had pneumonia within the previous 5 y as well as 172 other subjects who matched the pneumonia subjects with respect to age, sex, and number of other morbidities to form 2 groups for comparisons. We also subjected the data to a logistic regression analysis, with having or not having pneumonia as the dependent variable, oral and physical characteristics as independent variables, and age and sex as covariates.RESULTS: No significant differences were seen in physical characteristics between the 2 groups. Among the oropharyngeal characteristics, AMR was significantly lower in the pneumonia subjects (P = .005, effect size = 0.20), whereas RSST exhibited no significant difference between the 2 groups. Logistic regression revealed AMR to be the only factor related to pneumonia (P = .002, odds ratio 0.169, 95% CI 0.056–0.508).CONCLUSIONS: In community-dwelling elderly people, association of pneumonia with skilled tongue control (AMR) rather than with swallowing (RSST) prompts a reexamination of what constitutes being at risk for pneumonia.