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Caregivers play an important role in providing care for patients with dysphagia and experience various psychosocial issues, but these areas remain unexplored. There is paucity of tools to assess quality of life of caregivers of individuals with dysphagia attending to these cases. Hence, a need was felt to carry out the present study to develop a tool to assess quality of life for caregivers of individuals with dysphagia. Construction of questionnaire was done in Marathi language and validated by native Marathi speakers and face validity by experts. The questionnaire was administered on 30 caregivers of individuals with dysphagia.A detailed case history, demographic information of the caregivers was noted and questionnaire was administered on the caregivers using interview method. The data was subjected to measures of internal consistency and reliability. Statistical analysis revealed a high item to total correlation (0.6–0.92).Internal consistency was found to be high (α = 0.95) while Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) was administered for reliability revealing high reliability (ICC = 0.85).The analysis of responses of the caregivers on the statements revealed moderate to high scores for many statements indicating impact of dysphagia on activities of daily living, social aspects, feelings and attitudes and problems faced during feeding. QOLC-M was found to be a tool with high reliability and internal consistency. It could identify the impact of dysphagia on caregiver's QOL highlighting specific problems faced by them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To explore oral intake and quality of life measures among individuals with dysphagia. This cross-sectional study with purposive sampling included 15 individuals with dysphagia. Functional oral intake scale (FOIS) and Dysphagia Quality of Life questionnaire in Marathi (DQOL-QM) were administered on individuals with dysphagia to evaluate oral intake levels and swallow related quality of life respectively. Data was collected using the interview method via tele-mode. Statistical analysis using Spearman's rank correlation revealed significant negative correlation (ρ = − 0.87) between oral intake and overall quality of life of the individuals with dysphagia. This negative impact was observed across all the domains of their quality of life. A considerable negative impact on quality of life was observed with declining oral intake of the individual with dysphagia. As oral intake plays an important role in the quality of life, decisions regarding the mode of feeding must be guided by the preferences of the individual and their family. strategies that enhance oral intake improves quality of life of dysphagic individual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surgical resection and chemoradiation are common modalities of treatment in head and neck cancers. Dysphagia is one of the common complications following these interventions. The severity of dysphagia depends on various factors, site and extent of resection, and radiation therapy to highlight a few. Thirty-five head and neck cancer patients treated with surgical and/or chemoradiation were assessed for parameters of swallowing. Extent of resection was statistically associated with swallowing symptoms phase wise. The results revealed a strong association between the presence of aspiration with resection of the tongue base and radiation therapy (p < 0.01). Oral preparatory and oral phase abnormalities were present in all the cases with varying severity especially in cases where the mandible and body of tongue were compromised (p < 0.05). These findings provide a specific profile which has high clinical utility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]