Efficacy and safety of oropharyngeal muscle strength training on poststroke oropharyngeal dysphagia: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Objectives To investigate how oropharyngeal muscle strength training affected the safety and performance of swallowing in patients with poststroke oropharyngeal dysphagia.Design Systematic review and meta-analysis.Data sources Cochrane Central Register of Controlled of Trials, Web of Science, PubMed, Embase databases and ClinicalTrials.gov were systematically searched, for publications in English, from database inception to December 2022.Eligibility criteria Studies comparing the effect of oropharyngeal muscle strength training with conventional dysphagia therapy in patients with poststroke. Penetration-Aspiration Scale (PAS) and Functional Oral Intake Scale (FOIS) were assessed as the main outcomes.Data extraction and synthesis Two researchers independently screened the literature, extracted data and evaluated the quality of the included studies, with disagreements resolved by another researcher. The Cochrane risk-of-bias tool was used to assess the risk of bias. Review Manager V.5.3 was employed for the meta-analysis. Random effect models were used for meta-analysis.Results Seven studies with 259 participants were included in this meta-analysis. The results showed that oropharyngeal muscle strength training could reduce PAS score compared with conventional dysphagia therapy (mean difference=-0.98, 95% CI -1.34 to -0.62, p<0.0001, I-2=28%). The results also showed that oropharyngeal muscle strength training could increase FOIS score (mean difference=1.04, 95% CI 0.55 to 1.54, p<0.0001, I-2=0%) and the vertical displacement of the hyoid bone (mean difference=0.20, 95% CI 0.01 to 0.38, p=0.04, I-2=0%) compared with conventional dysphagia therapy.Conclusion In patients with poststroke oropharyngeal dysphagia, oropharyngeal muscle strength training can improve swallowing safety and performance.PROSPERO registration number CRD42022302471.