Coordination of swallowing and breathing in Parkinson's disease

Introduction: Parkinson disease (PD) is often accompanied by swallowing difficulties. Coregistration of swallowing and breathing in healthy subjects has shown a common pattern of expiration, deglutition with apnoea followed by expiration. Recent publications showed alterations of this pattern in PD patients with several swallows followed by expiration. PD patients are known to exhibit and increased number of swallows induced already by very low swallowing volumes. The purpose of the present investigation was to analyze natural, self induced deglutitions with both solid and liquid media by recording airflow and s…