My 91 year old father is in the last stage of Alzheimer's Disease. He recently (October 17) had a stroke, as a result of which he lost his ability to swallow and speak, and support himself on his feet. In the hospital, hospitalists, a pulmonologist and several speech therapists gave us no hope that his swallowing function would recover and recommended hospice. However, my mother and I had a G-tube installed directly to his stomach and have been feeding him formula through it. Since he cannot eat, is bedridden, and sleeps most of the time, his quality of life is pretty low, if there is any.

Nevertheless, my mother is nursing a hope for a miracle that his swallowing function would return. We saw something on the web (here: https://www.resolveyourpain.com/dysphagia-treatment-trouble-swallowing-digastric/) that if the digastric and associated supra-hyoid muscles could be relaxed by stretching them through external massage, then they would release the cranial nerves passing through them, and would themselves, now functioning properly, enable the swallowing function.

Does this line of reasoning make any sense to you? And is there any hope of the swallowing function and speech returning, by perhaps some other therapy / treatment?

Thank you.
Leon