Modeling and analyzing the acoustic signatures of human swallowing mechanism

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Swallowing is among the most complicated acts of the human body. Even a slight delay or mismatch in the sequence of swallowing events may allow food aspiration into the lung and causes appreciable morbidity and mortality. Especially in the elderly and in patients with disabilities, stroke, head-neck or spinal cord injuries, swallowing disorders are quite common. To assess swallowing disorders, patients are generally observed with a special X-ray (videofluroscopy) during feeding. Since our recent studies have shown promising diagnostic capabilities of swallowing sound analysis, we propose here to investigate other methods for swallowing assessment using acoustical analysis. Using available manometry data of the esophageal pressure in correspondence to videoflouroscopic images and swallowing sounds, we will develop a comprehensive structural model for the swallowing mechanism and model the acoustic signatures of specific swallowing events. We will validate and test our model with data obtained in both healthy subjects and patients. We hypothesize that some of the model's parameters, i.e. those that represent the muscle force or the timing between structural movements, will be significantly different between the two groups, and hence provide a means to explore objectively the cause of swallowing disorders. We also propose to develop a prototype of an integrated and modular system to acquire, denoise, analyze, and screen swallowing and breath sound signals, and to use wireless technology to transfer data to a remote clinical diagnostic center.