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♪ [music playing-- no dialogue] ♪♪.
Hello, my name is Victor Owens, and I'm a
dietetics graduate student here at Eastern Illinois University.
I'm here today to talk to you about
the difficulties of eating after a stroke.
After a person has had a stroke, the muscles in the throat
and in the mouth may be weakened, along with the
loss of sensation in the tongue, and the inability to cough.
All of these could cause dysphasia.
Dysphasia is simply trouble swallowing.
There's not a whole lot of hard data on how many stroke victims
actually suffer from dysphasia, but the American Stroke
Association says that about 65% of stroke victims actually have
dysphasia or trouble swallowing.
This is a high and alarming number.
And along with the dysphasia, they can also have aspiration
or aspirate, which is basically when certain muscles are
affected, they allow food and liquids to leak into the airway
that lead to the lungs.
And we all know we don't want food in our lungs.
I'm going to demonstrate to you a swallow-free smoothie which
would help, not eliminate, but reduce some of
these risks of swallowing.
Now, you're going to need a cup of frozen strawberries,
a half a cup of soymilk or low-fat milk, and a container
of six-ounce Yoplait yogurt.
Now what you're going to want to do, add your strawberries,
your 1/2 cup of milk, and Yoplait yogurt.
Now even though this reduces the risk of
the swallowing difficulties, the dysphasia and the aspirating,
it would not eliminate them.
And even if a person that has had a stroke is having
difficulties swallowing, they may not be able to tell you,
so you definitely want to keep a close eye on them.
Put it on high for one minute.
[blender starts].
[blender stops].
Wah la.
There we have a smoothie with the consistency that would allow
for the swallowing difficulties to be reduced.
If you have any further information that you would
like to know about eating difficulties after a stroke,
please feel free to go to the website
www.strokeassociation.org.
Thank you very much.
♪ [music playing-- no dialogue] ♪♪.