Soft Palate Elevation Research Articles

Elevation of the soft palate in speech and swallowing in normal female participants and females with motor neuron disease: an innovative procedure for measuring palatal elevation.

The aim was to measure the angle of elevation of the soft palate during the separate conditions of swallowing of pudding, swallowing of liquid and during production of 'may/pay', using videofluroscopy and innovative computer software. We then determined whether soft palate elevation (as reflected in measures of an angle) differed in those separate conditions. Twelve female participants were studied, aged 40-70 years. The trends observed were that the highest soft palate elevation was displayed in the liquid-swallowing condition and the lowest soft palate elevation was displayed in the speech conditions. The results did not reach statistical significance, but the findings support the suggestions of Rubesin et al. (1987) and Fritzell (1969) that soft palate elevation is higher during swallowing than during speech. This same method was then used to measure soft palate elevation under the same three conditions in nine females, all aged > 40 years, who had motor neuron disease. Again, the highest soft palate elevation was displayed when swallowing liquid, but this time the lowest elevation occurred when swallowing pudding. Owing to small numbers, results did not reach statistical significance, but the trends may be important to replicate in a larger study. This pilot study developed a comprehensive and accurate method of measuring the soft palate elevation using digitization and computer software.

Physical characteristics and gas composition of nasal air affect nasal nitric oxide release

We studied modulation of release of nitric oxide (NO) into nasal passages by physical characteristics (airflow, temperature, humidity) or gases (oxygen, carbon dioxide) in nasal air of humans. Each characteristic or gas in nasal air was changed during voluntary soft palate elevation (to isolate nasal passages). Increasing airflow through the nose caused incremental increases in NO release from 211±23 nl/(min m −2) at 1 L/min to 312±40 nl/(min m −2) at 22 L/min ( P<0.001, n=6). Decreased humidity (dry airflow, 1–22 L/min) reduced NO release only at the highest airflow rate. Changing temperature (range 46 to 0°C) had no effect on NO release. Hypoxia (below 4% O 2) rapidly and reversibly decreased NO release (200±40 nl/(min m −2) at 21% O 2 versus 99±17 nl/(min m −2) at 0% O 2 for 3 min, ( P<0.001, n=5). Carbon dioxide (5%) reduced NO release slightly. We conclude that airflow, reduced humidity, carbon dioxide concentration, and oxygen concentration modulate NO release into nasal passages.

Surgical treatment for a case of oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy

Oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy exhibits the symptoms of dysphagia and ptosis usually. We report a 34-year-old female case, with a chief complaint of hypernasality. And we decided to operate a surgical treatment because of very slow progression of this disease. To use the remained soft palate elevation effectively and to minimize the operative procedure, we employed a plastic operation of the pharyngeal posterior wall using the silicon block. After operation, the hypernasality was markedly improved and the veropharyngeal distance was reduced appropriately. So this method was considered as an effective treatment for the hypernasality. In this paper, the method is demonstrated and discussed bibliographically.

Patterns of soft palate movements in six languages

It has frequently been observed that soft palate elevation during vowels is correlated with the height of the vowel, that is, the soft palate is higher for high vowels and lower for low vowels. In order to see how generally this correlation between vowel height and degree of nasalization is exhibited, velic movements were monitored in the speech of 14 subjects by means of a photoelectric device, the nasograph. Subjects for the experiments were speakers of American English, Swedish, French, Amoy Chinese, Hindi and Brazilian Portuguese. The results indeed reveal a tendency among the subjects to nasalize low vowels more than high ones. The velum lowers earlier during a low vowel than during a high one, and some subjects exhibit greater extent of lowering during low vowels than high ones. In addition, the degree of coarticulated nasality is language-specific: the American and Brazilian speakers exhibit the greatest amount of assimilatory nasalization on vowels, whereas the Amoy speakers show the least. During post-nasal vowels which precede oral consonants as spoken by American English speakers, there is a strong correlation between vowel height and the timing of velic closure, whereas in Hindi and Swedish speakers this correlation is much weaker.