The electrophysiological investigation of the pharyngeal phase of swallowing

Cumhur Ertekin, Nur Yüceyar, İbrahim Aydoğdu, Murat Pehlivan

In this paper, we introduce a new electrophysiological and mechanical method used to measure laryngeal movements and related submental (SM) muscle and crycopharyngeus muscle (CP) of the upper eosaphageal sphincter EMG activity during swallowing. This method was applied to sixty normal subjects who do not ever complain of dysphagia; and physiological parameters related to swallowing were obtained. It is proposed that this method is cheap, practical, repeatable and available in every EMG laboratory, and it be used in the study of physiology of deglutition as well as in objective evaluation of neurogenic dysphagia.