Make sure you sit upright
Chewing and swallowing problems are more common than you think. For example, due to Sjögren’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, a muscle disease, dementia or as a result of brain damage. Five tips for difficulty chewing or swallowing.
Swallowing food is a complicated process involving the muscles of the lips, jaws, cheeks, tongue, palate and throat. These muscles work closely together so that you can swallow safely. If you have problems with that, it’s called dysphagia. The normal swallowing process begins with taking a sip or a bite. After this, the food is chewed and collected on the tongue. This is followed by the four phases of the swallowing process:
- The tongue pushes the food towards the pharynx.
- The palate rises and closes the opening to the nasal cavity.
- The epiglottis tilts and closes off the trachea.
- The food enters the esophagus.
Chewing and swallowing problems
People with Sjögren’s syndrome, Parkinson’s, dementia or a muscle disorder often have chewing and swallowing problems, for example due to a lack of saliva. Tooth or toothache or pain in the jaw muscles can also make chewing and swallowing difficult. This can manifest itself in several ways: choking causing you to cough or cough while eating or drinking, food or fluid running out of your mouth, difficulty chewing or difficulty swallowing. The sensitivity of the mouth may also be reduced, so that you do not feel well what is happening in your mouth or throat and food can get stuck in your cheek pouch or get stuck in your throat. The risk of choking is that food or fluid will end up in the windpipe instead of the esophagus. This could result in a life-threatening pneumonia or a choking hazard.
While it won’t fix the swallowing disorder, there are a few things you can do to reduce problems when eating or drinking:
Read also: This makes swallowing medicines a lot easier
1. Vary
Vary the flavors, temperature and texture of your food. This keeps your mouth ‘awake’. In general:
Difficulty chewing
Choose soft and ground foods and avoid hard and chewy foods (steak, crusts). Think of soft-boiled pasta with lots of sauce, stew with lots of gravy, stewed fish, scrambled eggs, omelet, French toast, pancakes, soft fruit, bread without crust.
Difficulty manipulating food in your mouth
Choose soft foods and avoid hard, grainy or crumbly foods and thin liquids.
Too little saliva
Eat soft and liquid food and drink enough. Avoid dry foods, such as rusks.
Quickly choking on moisture
Take thick liquids and avoid thin liquids. You can thicken thin drinks with special thickeners. There are also ready-to-drink ‘thickened’ drinks on the market today.
Difficulty swallowing
Eat liquid and soft foods and avoid tough and hard foods.
2. Make sure you sit upright
Make sure you sit up straight (90-degree position) while eating and for about 45 minutes afterwards, with your head tilted slightly forward. This is the best position to eat and drink unless you have trouble getting food into your mouth from front to back; in that case, tilt your head slightly backwards.
3. Eat mindfully
Focus on the food. If you let yourself be distracted by the TV, for example, you are more likely to choke.
4. Keep your mouth moist
If necessary, use a mouth humidifier (artificial saliva) and make sure you always have something to drink with your meals. Water or another non-carbonated drink between each bite helps to further process the food. Add extra gravy, sauce, crème frache, mayonnaise or butter to your meal. This helps to make the meal softer and easier to eat. A pasta dish with extra sauce can also help with a dry mouth. Eating fresh and sour products causes the production of thin saliva. Think of products such as pineapple, pickle, cucumber, silver onions, apple, tomato, lemon or orange.
Read also: 5 questions about saliva and dry mouth
5. Small is nice
Cut your food as finely as possible to reduce the risk of choking and choking.
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