Association of daily physical activity and leisure-time exercise with dysphagia risk in community-dwelling older adults: a cross-sectional study
Tomoko Maehara, Rumi Nishimura, Akari Yoshitake, Mineko Tsukamoto, Yuka Kadomatsu, Yoko Kubo, Rieko Okada, Mako Nagayoshi, Takashi Tamura, Asahi Hishida, Kenji Takeuchi, Kenji Wakai, Mariko Naito
Abstract
This study aimed to clarify the association of daily physical activity and leisure-time exercise with the risk of dysphagia in community-dwelling Japanese older adults using a questionnaire-based survey. We analyzed 3070 participants (1657 men, 1413 women; age 66 ± 4 years [mean ± SD]) of the Shizuoka and Daiko studies within the Japanese Multi-Institutional Collaborative Cohort study. We used the Dysphagia Risk Assessment for the Community-dwelling Elderly questionnaire to assess dysphagia risk and the International Physical Activity Questionnaire to assess daily physical activity and leisure-time exercise. Logistic regression analyses were used to evaluate the independent association of the amount of physical activity and leisure-time exercise with dysphagia risk. The proportion of participants with dysphagia risk was 27.5% (n = 844) and the risk was significantly higher in women (29.8%, n = 421) than in men (25.5%, n = 423; P = 0.008). Daily physical activity was not associated with dysphagia risk. A greater amount of leisure-time exercise was associated with lower dysphagia risk (P for trend = 0.003) and individuals in the highest leisure-time exercise quartile had a significantly lower odds ratio (0.68, 95% CI 0.52-0.89) than those in the lowest quartile, even after adjusting for the covariates.