Optimising medicine administration in patients with swallowing difficulties

Many patients can struggle to swallow tablets, capsules or other oral medicines.1 Especially in an aged care environment, this can often result in practices such as crushing, and/or mixing with vehicles that can adversely affect the pharmacodynamics of the drug in an individual patient. Dysphagia is the medical term used when a patient has difficulty swallowing. Patients with dysphagia may be at risk of aspiration.