In chronic dysphagia, nutrition support aims to?

• A. To cure dysphagia
• B. To prevent malnutrition and dehydration; may use oral supplementation, enteral feeding via nasogastric tube or PEG as needed
• C. To replace all meals with IV only
• D. To delay treatment

Answer: (B)

Maintaining adequate nutrition and fluid intake is the main goal when swallowing is chronically impaired. Because dysphagia can make it hard to eat and drink safely, nutrition support focuses on preventing malnutrition and dehydration rather than curing the swallowing disorder. Approaches include optimizing oral intake with texture-modified foods and high-calorie oral supplements, and using enteral feeding when needed—such as a nasogastric tube for short-term needs or a PEG for longer-term support. Intravenous nutrition is not the standard first-line approach in most chronic cases, and delaying treatment would fail to meet essential nutritional requirements.