Is there a decline in speech and swallowing in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis over ten years?

ABSTRACT

Purpose  To analyze the evolution of speech and swallowing decline in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) over a ten-year period.

Methods  A retrospective and longitudinal cohort study. Data were collected using the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Functional Rating Scale-Revised (ALSFRS-R) from 101 medical records of ALS patients treated at the multidisciplinary neuromuscular diseases clinic of a University Hospital over a ten-year period. The data were statistically analyzed, adopting a significance level of p<0.05.

Results  The analysis of the studied functions indicated that speech, swallowing, and salivation are altered over ten years in ALS. There are differences in patterns between the variables sex and disease type concerning symptoms related to dysarthria and dysphagia in these individuals, which may indicate the rate of progression over a given time interval.

Conclusion  There is a decline in speech and swallowing over ten years in ALS. The bulbar type leads to a faster decline in the studied functions than the spinal type.