SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. – Using jelly, applesauce, or another semisolid chaser instead of water is a better way to have patients swallow pills or tablets, particularly in patients with dysphagia.
Pills swallowed with water tend to get stuck in the esophagus fairly often, but a pill swallowed with jelly is more likely to travel the entire way down the esophagus into the stomach, Dr. Hiromi Chisaka said at the annual meeting of the Dysphagia Research Society.
In a pilot study, Dr. Chisaka and colleagues found that when volunteers swallowed barium pills with water, the fluoroscope showed that the pills became stuck in the esophagus 30% of the time.
The researchers were interested because it has been estimated that 15% of nursing home residents have difficulty swallowing pills and tablets, said Dr. Chisaka of the University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Kitakyushu City, Japan, in a poster presentation.
Dr. Chisaka's controlled study involved 20 elderly volunteers who did not have dysphagia. The volunteers swallowed hard gelatin capsules filled with barium sulfate and were observed with videofluoroscopy. Capsules were taken three times with 15 mL of water and three times with jelly.
When volunteers swallowed the capsules with water, seven pills were retained in transit, defined as a capsule that remained in the same position for at least 15 seconds. Only two pills swallowed with jelly were retained anywhere in the esophagus.