Oropharyngeal dysphagia (OD) is a prevalent geriatric syndrome causing severe nutritional and respiratory complications.

We aimed to describe the characteristics and therapeutic needs of older patients with OD admitted to a general hospital.

Prospective cohort study with patients (≥70 years) with OD consecutively admitted to a general hospital. OD was clinically assessed with the Volume-Viscosity Swallowing Test and nutritional status with the Mini Nutritional Assessment-short form. Oral health (OH) and periodontal diseases were evaluated by dentists. Functionality, frailty, sarcopenia, comorbidities, dehydration, quality of life (QoL) and mortality were also assessed.

We included 235 patients (87.3±5.5 years) with OD hospitalized for acute diseases (9.6±7.6 days). On admission, they had low functionality (Barthel: 51.3±25.1), frailty (Fried: 3.9±0.9; Edmonton: 10.3±2.7, 87.2–91.1% frail) and high comorbidities (Charlson: 3.7±2.0). Moreover, 85.1% presented signs of impaired safety and 84.7% efficacy of swallow. Up to 48% required fluid adaptation with a xanthan gum-based thickener (89.4% at 250 mPa·s; 10.6% at 800 mPa·s) and 93.2% a texture-modified diet (TMD) (74.4%, fork-mashable; 25.6%, pureed). A total of 98.7% had nutritional risk, 32.3% sarcopenia and 75.3% dehydration. OH was moderate (Oral Hygiene Index-simplified: 2.0±1.3) and 67.4% had periodontitis. QoL self-perception was 62.2% and 5.5% of patients died during hospitalization.

Hospitalized older OD patients have impaired safety of swallow, frailty, malnutrition, dehydration, low functional capacity and poor OH and high risk of respiratory infections. They need a multimodal intervention including fluid thickening, TMD, thickened oral nutritional supplementation and OH care to improve health status and reduce OD-associated complications.