Acceleration and EMG for sensing pharyngeal swallow

Swallowing disorders present a major problem in rehabilitation of stroke and head injury patients. Therefore, an accurate assessment of the swallowing ability is very important. Clinical bed-side evaluation is generally based on feeling. Reddy et al have developed quantitative methods to characterize the oral and the pharyngeal phase. For the pharyngeal phase they measured acceleration and swallow suction pressure. These measurements showed good correlation with clinical evaluation. Investigators have used Electromyography (EMG), using needle electrodes, to quantify the pharyngeal phase during swallowing. The objective of the present study was to investigate the relationship between the acceleration and surface EMG measured at the throat during swallowing in normal subjects.