a palatal defect may result from surgical resection, and its consequences could include difficulty in speech and nasal regurgitation of food and liquids. an obturator combined to speech aid prosthesis can improve nasal emission during speech,  and  assist  in  preventing  nasal  regurgitation  of  food.  this  article presents a clinical report of the reconstruction of palatopharyngeal function...

Palatopharyngeal dysfunction may take place when palatopharyngeal valve is unable to perform its own closing due to a lack of tissue (palatopharyngeal insufficiency) or lack of proper movement (palatopharyngeal incompetence). Palatopharyngeal insufficiency induces nasal regurgitation of liquids, hypernasal speech, nasal escape, disarticulations and impaired speech intelligibility. Prosthetic ma...

OBJECTIVES To elucidate the variations of the lateral pharyngeal wall anatomy on physical examination and to assess the clinical importance of the examination of the lateral pharyngeal wall on the presence and severity of obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome. METHODS The cross-sectional study was conducted at Ege University Medical School, Izmir, Turkey, between May 2010 and April 2011. The pati...

Although backward folding of the epiglottis is one of the signal events of the mammalian adult swallow, the epiglottis does not fold during the infant swallow. How this functional change occurs is unknown, but we hypothesize that a change in swallow mechanism occurs with maturation, prior to weaning. Using videofluoroscopy, we found three characteristic patterns of swallowing movement at differ...

A 61-year-old woman developed acute dyslalia, dysphonia, dysphagia, and facial rhythmic jerks 8 hours after the intake of 2 tablets of metoclopramide 10 mg, prescribed for nausea during respiratory infection. Examination revealed dysphonia, dyslalia, dysphagia, and myoclonus in the orbicularis oculi (video 1 on the Neurology® Web site at Neurology.org), orbicularis oris, and palatopharyngeal (v...

to be palatopharyngeal myoclonus/tremor and posited a direct relationship to metoclopramide. The drug was stopped and her symptoms subsided over approximately 8 hours. Palatopharyngeal myoclonus is typically a slow form of tremor at 1 to 4 Hz. It can involve the pharynx, larynx, diaphragm, and extend to involve even eye muscles. The rhythmic movement can occur both during phonation and at rest....

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to explore the differences in upper airway morphology between positional (POSA) and non-positional (NPOSA) obstructive sleep apnea. METHODS This retrospective study enrolled 75 patients (45 NPOSA and 30 POSA) who underwent polysomnography (PSG) and computed tomography (CT). The differences in, and relationships of, the PSG values and CT data between P...