1 Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, University of Utah
Performance of the hypopharynx was observed clinically and roentgenographically during oropharyngeal inflation, phonation, and swallow in a group of 20 normal subjects and 27 patients recovered incompletely from bulbar-pharyngeal poliomyelitis.
The varied disabilities of motor performance of the hypopharynx resulting from poliomyelitis have been classified, with indication of the particular muscular paralyses causing certain of these entities of disability.
Recent contributions to physiologic and clinical understanding of the motor event of swallow are reviewed. The total failure of swallow in poliomyelitis is not completely explained by familiar paralytic phenomena and possible alternative explanations of contracture or sclerosis of the sphincter muscles, distortions of afferent elements of the swallow reflex, disability of a swallow center, or of functional impairment must be considered.
Submitted on September 1, 1956