Effects of Chin Tuck Against Resistance Exercise on Post-stroke Dysphagia Rehabilitation: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Background: Chin tuck against resistance (CTAR) exercise was introduced to substitute for the commonly used Shaker exercise for dysphagia rehabilitation. The effects of CTAR exercise in stroke survivors needs to be validated.

Objective: To investigate the effects of Chin tuck against resistance (CTAR) exercise on the swallowing function and psychological condition in stroke survivors compared to no exercise intervention and the Shaker exercise.

Materials And Methods: The Cochrane Library, PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, CINAHL and four Chinese databases were searched for randomized controlled trails (RCTs) and quasi-RCTs from inception to February 2022.

Results: After screened and assessed the methodological quality of the studies, nine studies with 548 stroke survivors were included in the systematic review. 8 studies were included in the meta-analysis using RevMan 5.4 software. The mean difference (MD) or standardized mean difference (SMD) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated. The results revealed that CTAR exercise is effective in improving swallowing safety (MD, -1.43; 95% CI, -1.81 to -1.06; < 0.0001) and oral intake ability (SMD, -1.82; 95% CI, -3.28 to -0.35; = 0.01) compared with no exercise intervention, CTAR exercise is superior to Shaker exercise in improving swallowing safety (MD, -0.49; 95% CI, -0.83 to -0.16; = 0.004). The psychological condition in CTAR group is significant better than the control group (MD, -5.72; 95% CI, -7.39 to -4.05; < 0.00001) and Shaker group (MD, -2.20; 95% CI, -3.77 to -0.64; = 0.006).

Conclusions: Our findings support CTAR exercise as a superior therapeutic exercise for post-stroke dysphagia rehabilitation than Shaker exercise. More high-qualities RCTs from larger multicenter are needed to analysis the effects of CTAR exercise in patients with different type and phase of stroke and explore the optimal training dose.