Abstract
The nasopharyngeal organs in motion during phonation, blowing, sucking and swallowing was studied by lateral videofluorography in 25 normals. The results are summarized as follows.
1) The maximum elevation of the soft palate occurre d in swallowing, with less movement in blowing and even 1-ss in phonation. The movement in phonation was the greatest degree in consonants, then came vowels and nasal consonant s. Among the 5 vowels, /u/ showed the highest elevation of the soft palate with lesser movement in /i/, /e/, /o/ an d / a/ in that order.
2) In the majority of cases, nasopharyngeal closure was complete during the above activity except in sucking and in phonation of nasal consonants, but there are some in which the nasopharyngeal space was not completely closed during pho n ation of /a/and /o/. Significant differences were found in the amount of nasopharyngeal openings seen with the organs at a restin g position, upon sucking and during phonation of nasal consonants and /a/.
3) Movement of the posterior pharyngeal wall could be grossly divided into a flat type (20 cases) and a bulgy type (5 cases). The Passavant's ridge was observed in no case.
4) When classified according to the interrelationships of the soft palate and posterior wall movements, there were three different types in the nasopharyngeal closure during phonation. In Type I ( 13 cases), movements of the superior and u pper median pharynx was correlating to that of the soft palate. In Types II (8 cases) and III (4 cases), the soft palate actio n was accompanied by the movements of the upper median p harynx and the superior pharynx, respectively.
5) Motion of the nasopharyngeal structures upon blowing was relatively marked, but showed more or less similar pattern to that seen during phonation.
6) In sucking, the nasopharynx was left open and the soft palate was kept in close contact with the tongue.
7) Upon swallowing, nasopharyngeal closure was first attained by elevation of the soft palate and barium was swallowed down into the pharynx, then it was carried further down to the inferior pharynx with the aid of the tongue action.
