レーザ変位計を用いた喉頭挙上の計測

抄録

Aspiration pneumonia is often caused due to dysphagia, and the cases are increasing and increasing in aging society. Nowadays, several methods to assess dysphagia are available but most of them are qualitative, or specific equipment, such as X-ray equipment, is necessary for the quantitative measurement. In the present study, we tried to quantitatively and easily measure laryngeal elevation with sensor technologies. Specifically, we examined whether a laser displacement sensor (LDS) was applicable to externally grasp the laryngeal movement. Also, a method for indirectly measuring laryngeal elevation was proposed using changes in height at a position where the top of larynx exists in the non-swallowing state. Using the method, durations for laryngeal elevation when drinking a small amount of water were extracted from the measured data and were compared with those in a previous study. The results implied that the profile of laryngeal elevation can be estimated using the LDS.