Figure 1: Lip movement.

(Photo courtesy / Hong Xiangzhu)

Text/Hong Xiangzhu

During the Lunar New Year, enjoy delicious and sumptuous delicacies. When you have dinner with your family, pay more attention to the elders around you. Are you prone to choking when eating?

Stuck throat, throat clearing, or inability to eat hard food; help the elders to eat smoothly without choking, and usually lead the elders to follow you to do swallowing exercises, which will be used when stretching and swallowing Lips, tongue, throat and cheek muscles, eat and drink without worry.

●Smile often: stretch the lips, stretch the corners of the mouth to the sides, the more exaggerated the better, the movement needs to be maintained for 5 seconds, do 10 times in total.

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This exercise can enhance the strength of the lip muscles, so that liquid food is not easy to flow out of the mouth.

Figure 2: Cheek movement.

(Photo courtesy / Hong Xiangzhu)

●Blooming financial resources: move the cheeks to bulge the cheeks, like blowing up a balloon, maintain this movement for 5 seconds, and do it 10 times in total.

This exercise can simultaneously train the closing of the lips and the strength of the cheek muscles so that food does not fall into the side grooves of the cheeks.

Figure 3: Tongue movement.

(Photo courtesy / Hong Xiangzhu)

●Tongue rotation: Tongue stretching exercise, the tongue starts from the right corner of the mouth, and then alternately touches the corners of the mouth on both sides back and forth, doing 10 times in total.

After many times of practice, the flexibility of the elders' tongues can be increased, making eating smoother.

Figure 4: Swallowing movement.

(Photo courtesy / Hong Xiangzhu)

●Swallowing as you wish: Swallowing exercise, pretending that there is food in the mouth, chewing three times, and then swallowing hard; when assisting training, you can lightly touch the elder's neck with your finger to feel the elder's swallowing action is completed.

This action can train the cheek muscles and the muscles that lift the throat when swallowing, improve the efficiency of swallowing, and reduce the frequency of choking.

◎Health Reminder: Swallowing exercise can train the muscles of chewing and swallowing, and it is an exercise that everyone can do every day.

If the elders in the family have swallowing-related problems, it is recommended to go to the hospital for a detailed evaluation by a speech therapist.

(The author is a speech therapist at Lukang Christian Hospital)

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• the lips

• elder

• health care

• cheek

• Spring Festival Zone

• to swallow

• Chinese New Year Health Exercise

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