Acoustic Analysis of Voluntary Coughs, Throat Clearings, and Induced Reflexive Coughs in a Healthy Population.
Sofiana Mootassim-Billah, Jean Schoentgen, Marc De Bodt and 5 others
PMID 37245187WHAT IT FOUND
Acoustic analysis clearly distinguishes voluntary coughs, throat clearings, and reflexive coughs in healthy adults.
This offers speech therapists an objective alternative to unreliable auditory assessment for identifying these protective maneuvers during swallowing evaluations.
Key findings
01Voluntary coughs, throat clearings, and induced reflexive coughs are acoustically distinct and can be objectively differentiated.
02Throat clearings are longer in duration and lower in intensity than voluntary coughs.
03Reflexive coughs have a stronger, briefer onset pulse and higher high-frequency energy than voluntary coughs.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Participants were healthy adults, so the findings may not directly apply to patients with dysphagia or head and neck cancer. Intensity in dB could not be measured for induced reflexive coughs due to the anesthesia face mask. The skin-contact microphone attenuated high-frequency signals compared to the free-standing microphone. Instructions to produce voluntary coughs and throat clearings may have been confusing without agreed-upon clinical definitions.
Declared interests
None reported.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume these acoustic markers are validated for diagnosing dysphagia or aspiration risk in patients. This study was conducted on healthy adults; clinical application requires further research in patient populations.