Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate the abnormality of cough reflex in myotonic dystrophy (MyD) patients. Fourteen MyD patients, with mean age of 54.0 years, and age-matched 14 healthy adults took part in this study. They inspired the nebulized saline solution (control) and citric acid delivered by an ultrasonic nebulizer for 1 minute. Citric acid was dissolved in saline providing incremental concentrations from 5.6mg/ml to 360mg/ml. In this way, participants were promoted to cough. We counted the number of coughs for 2 minutes (1 minute during inspiration, and 1 minute after), and determined the cough threshold as the concentration at which the patient coughed at least 10 times. In the patients group, the thresholds were higher than the control group. We concluded cough reflex was impaired in MyD patients.
