Causes of dysphagia among different age groups: a systematic review of the literature.

Dysphagia is a common problem that has the potential to result in severe complications such as malnutrition and aspiration pneumonia. Based on the complexity of swallowing, there may be many different causes. This article presents a systematic literature review to assess different comorbid disease associations with dysphagia based on age. The causes of dysphagia are different depending on age, affecting between 1.7% and 11.3% of the general population. Dysphagia can be a symptom representing disorders pertinent to any specialty of medicine. This review can be used to aid in the diagnosis of patients presenting with the complaint of dysphagia.