Laryngopharyngeal reflux disease in the elderly

Excerpt

We reviewed the interesting article entitled: “Impact of age on laryngopharyngeal reflux disease presentation: a multi-center prospective study” by Lechien et al. [1]. This is excellent work. The authors assess the differences in the severity of symptoms, signs, voice quality, and quality of life before and after treatment according to age in patients with suspected laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR), then concluded that age appears to reduce subjective LPR symptom perception, meaning that older patients are undertreated. Acoustic parameters employed as indicators of treatment effectiveness seem to be less useful in elderly subjects, probably because of overlap between an aging voice and LPR [1], which is a major cause of laryngeal symptoms. However, various systemic and some organic diseases of the elderly may affect normal, physiological laryngeal function. In addition, reductions in general and symptomatic laryngopharyngeal sensitivity in the elderly render LPR diagnosis and accurate assessment of the efficacy of proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) very difficult. …