The swallow, a target to follow the restauration of consciousness in acquired brain injury.

Introduction: Brain injuries are the leading cause of disorders of consciousness and are often complicated by swallowing disorders. The aim of this study was to determine whether a correlation existed between swallowing and level of consciousness in patients with acquired brain injury.

Methods: This pilot and observational study was conducted in the post intensive care coma arousal rehabilitation on 10 patients with acquired brain injury with disorder of consciousness and swallowing disorder evaluated with the Coma Recovery Scale-Revised (CRS-R) CRS-R evaluation or WHIM scale and a SWallowing Disorders in Disorders of Consciousness (SWADOC) assessment, both conducted in the same timeline frame. Swallowing function was assessed using the SWADOC scale. The level of consciousness was evaluated with the CRS-R and the Wessex Head Injury Matrix (WHIM). A Pearson correlation analysis was performed to examine the potential relationship between swallowing capacity and level of consciousness.

Results: A strong correlation was identified between the CRS-R and WHIM scales with the SWADOC evaluation. Indeed, the correlation between SWADOC and CRS-R reached 0.70, while the correlation between SWADOC and WHIM was above 0.60.

Conclusion: These findings highlight the importance of integrating swallowing evaluation within the multimodal assessment of consciousness recovery.