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Relationship between tongue muscle quality and swallowing speed in community-dwelling older women

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Abstract

Objective

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between tongue muscle quality index, which was represented as tongue muscle pressure divided by tongue muscle mass, and swallowing speed in community-dwelling older women.

Methods

The inclusion criteria for this cross-sectional study were that participants be community-dwelling older women aged 65 years and above without dysphagia. The exclusion criteria were stroke and Parkinson’s disease that directly cause dysphagia. We measured tongue muscle thickness and maximum tongue pressure and the tongue muscle quality index, which was defined as the maximum tongue pressure divided by tongue muscle thickness. We investigated swallowing speed via a 100 ml water swallowing test. To assess the relationship between tongue muscle characteristics and swallowing speed, we performed stepwise multiple regression analysis.

Results

Ninety-three participants were enrolled in this study (mean age: 84.2 ± 4.7 years). A stepwise multiple regression analysis showed that age (β = − 0.292, p < 0.01) and tongue muscle quality index (β = 0.267, p < 0.01) were related to swallowing speed.

Conclusion

We found that tongue muscle quality index was related to swallowing speed in community-dwelling older women. According to our findings, it is possible that the tongue muscle quality index is a useful parameter for assessing swallowing speed in older women without dysphagia.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge Mr. Buichi Tanaka and Mr. Yasuhito Obuchi for their contributions to the data collection.

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences, University of Tsukuba, 3-29-1 Otsuka, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 112-0012, Japan

    Mizue Suzuki, Shingo Koyama, Yosuke Kimura, Daisuke Ishiyama, Shunsuke Ohji, Yuhei Otobe, Naohito Nishio, Yota Kunieda, Takeo Ichikawa, Daisuke Ito, Hideyuki Ogawa & Minoru Yamada

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  1. Mizue Suzuki
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  2. Shingo Koyama
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  3. Yosuke Kimura
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  12. Minoru Yamada
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Correspondence to Mizue Suzuki.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Suzuki, M., Koyama, S., Kimura, Y. et al. Relationship between tongue muscle quality and swallowing speed in community-dwelling older women. Aging Clin Exp Res 32, 2073–2079 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-019-01388-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-019-01388-z

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