Dysphagia: Integrating Respiration And Deglutition

Course overview

This course will provide a twenty-year history of original work by a clinician scientist, her collaborators and colleagues that addresses the mechanistic, anatomical and functional relationships of the human upper aerodigestive tract. A line of research derived directly from the needs of patients will highlight the interactions of respiration and swallowing. The physiologic advantages and disadvantages of contiguous nervous, muscular and connective tissues common to the two functions will be illustrated and discussed. The reciprocal roles of valves and pressure generating mechanisms common to voice and swallowing will be demonstrated. Normal and impairment models of respiratory-swallowing coordination will be reviewed as a foundation for the development of novel therapies that directly target respiratory-swallowing coordination during swallowing rehabilitation.