Deglutição e disfagia em pacientes acometidos pela COVID-19 - uma revisão de literatura

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: COVID-19 can cause Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, requiring procedures that can cause injury to the larynx. Speech and language therapists are professionals who work in the management of dysphagia and in the evaluation and rehabilitation of all correlated aspects. PURPOSE: To perform a systematic review of speech and language therapy in COVID-19, evaluating the techniques and protocols used in the clinical practice of dysphagic patients. RESEARCH STRATEGY: The articles gathered in this study were selected through the PubMed and Scielo databases using the crossing of keywords: Covid-19, Deglutition and Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, limiting itself to texts in English or Portuguese that had a direct correlation with the theme, published between 2018 and 2023, with free access to the full text. SELECTION CRITERIA: Included articles on dysphagia; duplicate articles; guidelines; literature reviews and letters or responses to the editor were excluded. RESULTS: Twenty three articles were analyzed, characterized in group A (cross-sectional studies) and group B (cohort studies). In group A, there was an incidence of dysphagia in 64.7% of the studies; 59.9% used bedside assessment and 17.5% used objective assessment methods. In group B the rates were 42%, 66.7% and 0% respectively. Many studies report a high prevalence of Oropharyngeal Dysphagia; some associate the increase of comorbidities, intubation time and malnutrition with the worsening of the swallowing pattern. CONCLUSION: There was no consensus on which protocol or technique is safer to use in these patients. It is concluded, however, the need for speech therapy for patients affected by COVID-19, especially in the most severe cases of the disease.