Acoustics Features of Cervical Auscultation in Dysphagic and Dysphonic Individuals: A Preliminary Study

The acoustics of cervical auscultation of swallowing, a potential objective tool for the swallowing assessment, has been explored in normal subjects. However, there needs to be more literature profiling the same in individuals with swallowing problems. The study estimated the acoustic features of swallowing sounds in individuals with swallowing and voice problems and compared them with the previous reported findings in literature. Eight individuals with dysphonia and dysphagia were recruited to analyse cervical auscultation using a vibration pickup conduction microphone attached to the cricoid region on the neck of each participant. The participants showed different acoustic wave morphologies for swallowing sounds, including multiple waves, which were absent in the normal waveforms. The mean intensity, peak intensity were as higher in the current study participants than normal values reported literature in previous, suggesting increased strain and effort in individuals with dysphagia. The duration parameters were comparatively longer than those reported in previous literature showing the prolonged pharyngeal stage. The morphological and acoustic characteristics of swallow sounds in dysphagic and dysphonic individuals are deviating from then normal patterns. The utilisation of these features will help comprehensive diagnosis of swallowing difficulties. The LTAS was found to be the appropriate way of estimating the frequency of the peak intensity than using the intensity contour in the spectrogram since the values calculated using LTAS are more representative of the parameters. The study was a preliminary attempt to explore the acoustic features in individuals with voice and swallowing problems.