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People with breathing problems also have problems with swallowing, University of Pittsburgh researchers report
American Thoracic Society
Patients with moderate to severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exhibit a disordered breathing-swallowing pattern that may account for their higher risk of aspiration pneumonia, according to new research from the University of Pittsburgh.
In the first issue for April of the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Roxann Diez Gross, PhD, and colleagues report that patients with moderate to severe COPD exhibit alterations between breathing and swallowing patterns even when they are not experiencing exacerbations.
While it was previously known that COPD patients exhibited decoupling of the breathing-swallowing pattern of saliva during exacerbations, until now there were no formal studies detailing to what extent, if any, disruptions in breathing and swallowing coordination occurred in COPD patients outside of exacerbations during normal eating.
