RESUMEN
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.
Asunto(s)
Aceleración , Trastornos de Deglución/diagnóstico , Trastornos de Deglución/fisiopatología , Diagnóstico por Computador/instrumentación , Monitoreo Fisiológico/instrumentación , Sistemas de Atención de Punto , Transductores , Diseño de Equipo , Análisis de Falla de Equipo , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Reproducibilidad de los Resultados , Sensibilidad y Especificidad , Adulto JovenRESUMEN
Physiological studies of swallowing and the diagnosis and treatment of dysphagia are crucially dependent of detailed information of respiratory and feeding events. Home telemonitoring is of great interest in this area, where large numbers of people have long term conditions. The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) describe a new configurable instrument that can be used in ambulatory and telemedicine applications and (2) evaluate the performance of this device in the description of physiological and abnormal events during water swallowing. The instrument is able to detect when water is beginning to enter the mouth of the volunteer, to unobtrusively monitor the respiration, and to characterize the elevation of the larynx. The performance of the system was tested in normal subjects and patients with dysphagia, showing results in close agreement with the physiology. We concluded that the developed system could be a useful tool for the ambulatory evaluation of respiratory and feeding events and for the implementation of telemedicine services, contributing to reduce the costs of the assistance offered to patients with dysphagia.