Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019
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Date of Graduation
Spring 2017
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts (BA)
Department
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders
Advisor(s)
Erin Kamarunas
Teresa Drulia
Elizabeth Nottingham
Abstract
The clinical efficacy of swallowing exercises is well established in swallowing literature, and biofeedback has been shown to augment cortical hemodynamic response (HDR) during normal swallowing. This study compared HDR during swallowing exercises with and without biofeedback to HDR during normal swallows with and without biofeedback. Healthy adult participants (n=6, mean age=50.83 male=2) were recruited and trained on the following conditions: normal swallowing, swallowing exercise in which a specific physiological target was given (skilled), and swallowing exercises in which no specific physiological target had to be achieved (non-skilled). Biofeedback consisted of submental surface electromyography (sEMG) signals displayed visually. HDR were recorded using functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Significantly increased early HDR amplitude in the biofeedback conditions was observed only in the cortical sensory areas (pp=.07 and p=.61, respectively). There was a significant difference between the HDR of normal swallows and skilled swallow exercises (pp=.07). However, there was not a significant difference between the two exercise types, (p=.72). Our findings indicate that visual biofeedback and skilled swallowing exercises increase the cortical HDR compared to normal swallowing.
Recommended Citation
Rinehart, Rachel J., "Effect of biofeedback and exercise type on neural swallowing control" (2017). Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019. 244.
https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/honors201019/244
