Atuação fonoaudiológica em pacientes traqueostomizados no contexto da Covid-19

Abstract

Purpose: to describe the contributions of speech therapy performance in tracheostomy patients in the context of COVID-19. Methods: retrospective study of a descriptive nature and quantitative analysis, using medical records to collect clinical and general variables from patients and speech therapy services. For statistical analysis, the Pearson or Spearman correlation coefficient was adopted and a significance level of 5% (p< 0.05). Results: twenty-eight medical records of patients were included (57.1% male) with a mean age of 52.1 years, who were hospitalized for approximately 53.7 days and progressed to tracheostomy after 22.1 days of orotracheal intubation. There were ten speech therapy per patient, which started on average 38.4 days into hospitalization and were requested in 39.3% of cases for the progression of the tracheostomy and oral diet. The tracheostomy cuff was kept deflated on the third service, decannulation was suggested seven days after the start and the patient was given an oral diet after five services. When we analyzed the time speech therapy services began, it showed a positive correlation with the length of hospital stay (p<0.0001), but not with the decannulation process and the length of time with the tracheostomy. On the other hand, the number of speech therapy services had a positive correlation with the length of time the tracheostomy was in use and the time until the oral diet was released. Conclusion: Speech therapy contributes to swallowing rehabilitation and the safe return to oral feeding in patients submitted to tracheostomy in the context of COVID-19.