Adjunctive electrical stimulation speeds recovery of oral intake in acute stroke dysphagia, small trial finds

A randomised controlled trial (n=57, single site) found that adding neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) to traditional swallowing therapy produced significantly faster functional oral intake and symptom improvement than swallowing therapy alone, in patients with acute or subacute post-stroke dysphagia Primary Study (Lin & Shih1).

The trial is small and single-site, which limits how confidently its effect size generalises across different speech and language therapy services. It is relevant to a general post-stroke dysphagia population rather than to any specific subgroup, and does not address rurality or deprivation-linked access questions.