The effects of combined early oral health care and early mobilisation on the incidence of stroke-associated pneumonia

Objective: To investigate the effects of combined early oral healthcare and early mobilisation on the incidence of stroke-associated pneumonia during hospitalisa-tion of acute stroke patients. Materials and methods: In this single-centre, non -blinded, before-and-after cohort study, patients received basic stroke rehabilitation by a multidisciplinary team within 72 h of symptom onset from July to September 2016 and from July to September 2018. Patients were divided into two groups: 1) patients who received combined early oral healthcare and early mobilisation (early intervention group) (n=107), and 2) patients who received usual care (control group) (n=107). The relationship between the stroke-associated pneumonia inci-dence and prognosis was examined. Results: The early intervention group had a sig-nificantly lower incidence of stroke-associated pneumonia than the control group (0.93% vs. 7.48%; P=0.01). Moreover, the early intervention group had a signifi-cantly lower proportion of patients who died or required medical care because of recurrent pneumonia at discharge (0.93% vs. 5.6%; P=0.04). In contrast, there were no significant differences between the two groups regarding the Revised Hasega-wa's Dementia Scale on day 14 (22.5 vs. 23; P=0.87), Functional Independence Mea-sure on day 14 (112 vs. 116; P=0.06), and rate of total oral diet (Food Intake LEVEL Scale >7) at discharge (95.2% vs. 93.5%; P=0.55). Conclusions: Combined early oral healthcare and early mobilisation by a multidisciplinary team significantly decreased the stroke-associated pneumonia incidence within 7 days and reduced the percentage of patients who died or required medical care because of recurrent after stroke.(c) 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.