title: Instrumentation for bedside analysis of swallowing disorders.
abstract: Disordered swallowing, or dysphagia, is a common problem seen in patients undergoing treatment for cancer, stroke and neurodegenerative illnesses. This disease is associated with aspiration-induced chest infections. The methods currently used for diagnosis, however, are qualitative or based on expensive equipment. Swallowing accelerometry is a promising low-cost, quantitative and noninvasive tool for the evaluation of swallowing. This work describes the design and application of a bedside instrument able to evaluate swallowing mechanisms and to identify patients at risk of aspiration. Three-axis swallowing accelerometry was used to measure the neck vibrations associated with deglutition, providing analog signals to a virtual instrument developed in LabVIEW environment. In vivo tests in normal subjects as well as tests with disphagic patients showed that the system was able to easily and non-invasively detect changes in the swallowing acceleration pattern associated with increasing values of water volume (p < 0.02) and disphagia. We concluded that the developed system could be a useful tool for the objective bedside evaluation of patients at risk of aspiration.
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Instrumentation Laboratory and Speech Therapy Department, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. catiusciasouza@yahoo.com.br
authors.forename: Catiuscia S S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Greco
authors.forename: Luiz G Q
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Nunes
authors.forename: Pedro L
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Melo
mesh_terms: D000054:Acceleration; D003680:Deglutition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003936:Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation*; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic / Q000295:instrumentation*; D019095:Point-of-Care Systems; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014159:Transducers; D055815:Young Adult