Tablets and pills are very difficult to take for large numbers of people. Dysphagia may be found in all age brackets although it is most commonly encountered in the very young and the elderly. Older people have more difficulties with the problem because of changes to the saliva glands when they grow older. Dysphagia is a particularly serious problem in care homes for the elderly where up to 1/3 of residents might suffer from it which makes caring for them a far more complicated and time consuming process. Dysphagia can have a significant effect on a patient’s health because it can interfere with medication management when the patient can’t or won’t take medicine in tablet form. When pills are taken by mouth they can sometimes create a blockage and result in choking. Additionally there is a chance that pills and tablets may become stuck in the throat which can cause damage of the throat as well as the incorrect dispersal of the drug. difficulty in swalloging Up till now the most common way of managing the problems that Dysphagia presents has been tablet crushing in order to make medication easier to swallow. Crushing pills so they are easy to swallow may seem like a straightforward solution to the issue of Dysphagia however it can lead to several serious implications and effect the potency of the tablet. Some pills are sugar coated to make them taste better and while crushing them might not change the way the pill works it will make them taste very unpleasant. A lot of the pills and tablets developed these days have an enteric layer that is designed to keep the pill together in the stomach. Tablets with an enteric layer must not be crushed because the coating is there either to protect the stomach from the medication or to protect the medication from the effects of the stomach . Luckily there is now an alternative for those who are afflicted by Dysphagia and the people that care for them. The worth of liquid medicines when managing patients with Dysphagia has been recognised by the medical community and has led to calls for a wider variety of liquid medicines to be developed. Oral liquid medicine may be used to deal with the effects of a number of health problems and conditions and the range of diseases it may be used to treat is improving all the time. Liquid medicines are very easy to swallow and also come in several different flavours.