Respiratory System
Coughing helps clear foreign particles from the airway in those with dysphagia who may be at risk for aspiration. This is a treatment using a device that has been shown to improve cough and swallow function.
What is EMST?
What is GI Soft?
This is a medical term for an infection caused by yeast called Candida that develops in the mouth or throat.
What is thrush or oropharyngeal candidiasis?
This is a language disorder caused by brain damage primarily in the left hemisphere, affecting the ability to communicate, understand, read, and write.
What is aphasia?
This is the medical term for the reduced ability to open the jaw and can be a well known complication of head and neck cancer because of surgery, radiation, and/or chemotherapy.
What is trismus?
A patient on high flow oxygen supplementation is at a greater risk of aspiration when the flow rate is at or above this pressure.
What is 40LPM?
This feeding tube is inserted through the skin and the stomach wall to allow patients to receive nutrition, fluids, and medicine directly into their stomach.
What is a PEG tube?
This is the medical term for when the swallowing process is painful.
This is a neurological speech disorder where brain damage impairs the ability to plan and sequence the motor movements needed to produce speech.
What is acquired apraxia of speech (AOS)?
This term refers to age-related changes the swallowing mechanism that can affect both healthy and unhealthy older adults.
Swallow-respiratory incoordination is a primary factor in dysphagia in critically ill and even acutely ill patients. A high ___, or breaths per minute, can indicate that a patient is more likely to aspirate.
What is Respiratory Rate?
A patient with this diagnosis might present at bedside with difficulty swallowing solids and liquids, globus sensation, regurgitation of undigested food, and bad breath.
What is a Zenker's Diverticulum?
After this surgery, a common cause for acute postoperative dysphagia is edema of the esophageal or pharyngeal wall due to excessive or prolonged retraction of the larynx, esophagus and soft tissues of the neck. Because of this, nerve injuries can also be common.
What is ACDF? (Anterior cervical discectomy and fusion)
Adults with this diagnosis, particularly those with memory problems, are generally at a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease or another type of dementia compared to those without it.
What is MCI (mild cognitive impairment)?
This is a neurological assessment tool used to quantify a person's level of consciousness after a brain injury. The total score, ranging from 3 to 15, provides a summary of the patient's overall state of consciousness. A lower score indicates a more severe level of consciousness impairment.
What is the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS)?
The medical term for low levels of oxygen in the blood.
What is Hypoxemia?
What is a hiatal hernia?
If this cranial nerve is injured you may see contralateral (opposite side) tongue weakness and deviation if there is a UMN lesion or ipsilateral (same side) weakness, deviation, atrophy, or fasciculations if there is a LMN lesion.
What is CN XII (Hypoglossal)?
These are the four areas involved in speech production that must be assessed when evaluating a patient with dysarthria.
What is respiration, phonation, articulation, and resonance?
This assessment tool is typically used in conjunction with the Global Deterioration Scale (GDS) to help stage a person suffering from a primary degenerative dementia such as Alzheimer's disease.
What is the Brief Cognitive Rating Scale (BCRS)?
This is an umbrella term (acronym) used to describe progressive lung diseases including emphysema, chronic bronchitis, and refractory asthma. Older adults diagnosed with this may be at a higher risk of mild cognitive impairment.
What is COPD?
This may be one of the differential diagnoses for a patient with intermittent dysphagia to solids.
What is an esophageal web? What is an esophageal ring? What is a hiatal hernia? What is an esophageal stricture? What is an esophageal tumor/malignancy?
After this specialty surgery, 94% of postoperative adult patients with no prior history of dysphagia were found to have unsafe swallowing (65% penetrators, 29% aspirators). Silent aspiration was observed in 53% of aspirators, and 32% did not clear aspirate material.
What is cardiac surgery?
This is a neuropsychiatric phenomenon characterized by the unintentional creation of false memories, often due to memory deficits or brain injury. This is often seen during delirium.
What is confabulation?
This is the medical term for hypersalivation or excessive drooling, often seen in Parkinson's disease.
What is sialorrhea?