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Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews

Therapeutic exercises for affecting post‐treatment swallowing in people treated for advanced‐stage head and neck cancers

Overview of attention for article published in Cochrane database of systematic reviews, August 2016
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (84th percentile)
  • Average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source

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1 policy source
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7 X users
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2 Facebook pages
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1 Wikipedia page

Citations

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75 Dimensions

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mendeley
573 Mendeley
Title
Therapeutic exercises for affecting post‐treatment swallowing in people treated for advanced‐stage head and neck cancers
Published in
Cochrane database of systematic reviews, August 2016
DOI 10.1002/14651858.cd011112.pub2
Pubmed ID
Authors

Alison Perry, Siew Hwa Lee, Susan Cotton, Catriona Kennedy

Abstract

Head and neck cancer treatment has developed over the last decade, with improved mortality and survival rates, but the treatments often result in dysphagia (a difficulty in swallowing) as a side effect. This may be acute, resolving after treatment, or remain as a long-term negative sequela of head and neck cancer (HNC) treatment. Interventions to counteract the problems associated with dysphagia include swallowing exercises or modification of diet (bolus texture, size), or both. To determine the effects of therapeutic exercises, undertaken before, during and/or immediately after HNC treatment, on swallowing, aspiration and adverse events such as chest infections, aspiration pneumonia and profound weight loss, in people treated curatively for advanced-stage (stage III, stage IV) squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. The Cochrane ENT Information Specialist searched the ENT Trials Register; Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL 2016, Issue 6); MEDLINE; PubMed; Embase; CINAHL; LILACS; KoreaMed; IndMed; PakMediNet; Web of Science; ClinicalTrials.gov; ICTRP; speechBITE; Google Scholar; Google and additional sources for published and unpublished trials. The date of the search was 1 July 2016. We selected randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of adults with head and neck cancer (stage III, stage IV) who underwent therapeutic exercises for swallowing before, during and/or immediately after HNC treatment to help produce safe and efficient swallowing. The main comparison was therapeutic exercises versus treatment as usual (TAU). Other possible comparison pairs included: therapeutic exercises versus sham exercises and therapeutic exercises plus TAU versus TAU. TAU consisted of reactive management of a patient's dysphagia, when this occurred. When severe, this included insertion of either a percutaneous endoscopic gastroscopy or nasogastric tube for non-oral feeding. We used the standard methodological procedures expected by Cochrane. Our primary outcomes were: safety and efficiency of oral swallowing, as measured by reduced/no aspiration; oropharyngeal swallowing efficiency (OPSE) measures, taken from videofluoroscopy swallowing studies; and adverse events, such as chest infections, aspiration pneumonia and profound weight loss. Secondary outcomes were time to return to function (swallowing); self-reported changes to quality of life; changes to psychological well-being - depression, anxiety and stress; patient satisfaction with the intervention; patient compliance with the intervention; and cost-effectiveness of the intervention. We included six studies (reported as seven papers) involving 326 participants whose ages ranged from 39 to 83 years, with a gender bias towards men (73% to 95% across studies), reflecting the characteristics of patients with HNC. The risk of bias in the studies was generally high.We did not pool data from studies because of significant differences in the interventions and outcomes evaluated. We found a lack of standardisation and consistency in the outcomes measured and the endpoints at which they were evaluated.We found no evidence that therapeutic exercises were better than TAU, or any other treatment, in improving the safety and efficiency of oral swallowing (our primary outcome) or in improving any of the secondary outcomes.Using the GRADE system, we classified the overall quality of the evidence for each outcome as very low, due to the limited number of trials and their low quality. There were no adverse events reported that were directly attributable to the intervention (swallowing exercises). We found no evidence that undertaking therapeutic exercises before, during and/or immediately after HNC treatment leads to improvement in oral swallowing. This absence of evidence may be due to the small participant numbers in trials, resulting in insufficient power to detect any difference. Data from the identified trials could not be combined due to differences in the choice of primary outcomes and in the measurement tools used to assess them, and the differing baseline and endpoints across studies.Designing and implementing studies with stronger methodological rigour is essential. There needs to be agreement about the key primary outcomes, the choice of validated assessment tools to measure them and the time points at which those measurements are made.

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 573 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United Kingdom 1 <1%
Hong Kong 1 <1%
Canada 1 <1%
Unknown 570 99%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 95 17%
Student > Ph. D. Student 59 10%
Student > Bachelor 59 10%
Researcher 47 8%
Other 28 5%
Other 99 17%
Unknown 186 32%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 139 24%
Nursing and Health Professions 86 15%
Psychology 42 7%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 16 3%
Social Sciences 15 3%
Other 65 11%
Unknown 210 37%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 11. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 22 June 2021.
All research outputs
#3,366,245
of 25,508,813 outputs
Outputs from Cochrane database of systematic reviews
#6,148
of 13,145 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#54,790
of 350,018 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Cochrane database of systematic reviews
#129
of 260 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,508,813 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 86th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 13,145 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 35.7. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 53% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 350,018 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 84% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 260 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 50% of its contemporaries.