A lot of patients receiving treatment have difficulties swallowing medicine. Dysphagia (swallowing difficulties) is most frequent in the aged and the young. When we get older the characteristics of the saliva glands change which make it more difficult to take pills and tablets. Dysphagia is a particularly severe problem in care homes for the elderly where about 1/3 of residents may suffer from it which makes caring for them a more challenging and time consuming process. The problems Dysphagia brings about may be severe because it interferes with medicine management as well as medication management when the affected individual has difficulties swallowing tablets. Whenever tablets are taken by mouth they can sometimes cause a blockage and lead to choking. Tablets may also become trapped in the throat which can lead to damage of the throat and also the drug not being effectively distributed around the body. Up till now the most widespread way of coping with the difficulties that Dysphagia presents has been tablet crushing in order to make medicine less difficult to swallow. However there are lots of issues related to crushing tablets that could have significant implications and may have an effect on the efficacy of the medicine. Some capsules are sugar coated to make them taste better and while crushing them might not alter the way the product works it will make them taste very unpleasant. Many of the pills and tablets produced these days come with an enteric layer that’s designed to keep the pill together inside the stomach. Tablets with an enteric layer must not be crushed because the coating is there to either guard the stomach from the medication or guard the medication from the effects of the stomach . Fortunately help is readily available for sufferers of Dysphagia and also the people who care for them. The benefit of liquid medicines when managing patients with Dysphagia has been accepted by the healthcare community and it has resulted in calls for a wider variety of liquid medicines to be created. Oral liquid medicine is produced to deal with a wide range of illnesses and diseases such as those affecting the cardio-vascular system as well as the endocrine system and more liquid medicines are being developed all the time. Liquid medicines are extremely easy to swallow and also are available in several different flavours.