8th ESSD Congress, Dublin 2018

Introduction: Dysphagia is known in pediatric neuromuscular disorders (pNMD).The consequences of dysphagia can be substantial: failure to thrive malnutrition choking and aspiration pneumonia.Early detection and identification of risk factors and etiology support preventing complications and morbidity including impact on quality of life.In adults with NMD a prevalence for dysphagia of 36-58% was found.In children information about the prevalence of dysphagia is scarce.The aim of this study was to describe the pooled prevalence of dysphagia in different p-NMD.Secondary we aimed to describe frequency proportions between chewing and swallowing problems.Materials and Methods: Data were collected from 299 children (mean age 11; 0 range 2; 6-19; 0) with pNMD in 11 hospitals and rehabilitation centers in the Netherlands.An SLT with experience in pNMD used the short screening and/or the extensive speech language assessment of the Diagnostic list of Dysphagia and Dysarthria in pNMD (DDD-pNMD publication in preparation) to establish if dysphagia was present or not.The DDD-pNMD is currently the best available assessment by lack of a golden standard.Results: In all of the 14 groups of pNMD except HSAN type II dysphagia was present (Table ).Pooled overall prevalence of dysphagia was 474%.Of 116 children with dysphagia 90% of them had chewing problems 42% showed swallowing problems and 32% showed combined problems.Conclusions: The overall pooled prevalence of dysphagia was high: 474% in the population of pNMD although there are marked differences between diagnostic groups.This high prevalence in combination with the variable onset and consequences of dysphagia justifies monitoring by periodic screening of the whole pNMD population as soon as a child is diagnosed.