Effects of Different Modes of Action Observation Therapy on Swallowing Function After Stroke: a Study Based on fNIRS

Dysphagia is one of the most common symptoms of stroke patients, which seriously affects the quality of life of patients and delays the progress of rehabilitation. At present, the commonly used clinical swallowing treatment methods can achieve certain therapeutic effects, but the treatment effect of some patients is still not ideal. Therefore, we need to explore more and more effective treatment methods to improve the swallowing function of patients. Action observation therapy, which was developed based on the mirror neuron theory, has been widely used in the rehabilitation of limb motor function, and its therapeutic effect has been verified by a large number of clinical trials. There are few clinical studies on action observation therapy in swallowing function rehabilitation, and most of the current studies use swallowing videos to allow patients to observe actions, and then guide patients to imitate actions. Some studies have found that oral mirror neurons can be formed in the context of familiar environment, people and emotional communication. Therefore, this study proposes a new mode of action observation therapy for dysphagia, that is, to observe the real swallowing movement in actual daily life, in order to better improve the swallowing function of stroke patients with dysphagia. This study was a single-center, assessor-blinded, randomized controlled study. After enrollment, all patients received swallowing assessment, including scale assessment (WST, FOIS, SSA, BMI, SWAL-QOL, VAS satisfaction survey, KVIQ motor imagery assessment, total oral intake/eating time), neck ultrasound and FNIRS brain function assessment. According to the random number table method, the patients were divided into three groups, A: control group, B: video swallowing movement observation therapy group, C: daily actual swallowing movement observation therapy group. All three groups were given routine swallowing function training. In group B, action observation therapy with video was added, that is, watching a video of swallowing action with sound, and then performing simulated swallowing action. Group C added the actual swallowing movement observation therapy in daily life, that is, in actual daily life, to observe the real eating and swallowing movement of relatives, and then imitate the swallowing movement. The training sessions were 30min each time, once a day, 5 days a week, for a total of 3 weeks. After the treatment, the scale assessment, neck ultrasound and FNIRS brain function assessment were performed again.