Difficulty swallowing (called dysphagia) can occur at any stage of Parkinson’s disease. Signs and symptoms include difficulty swallowing certain foods or liquids, coughing or throat clearing during or after eating/drinking, and feeling as if food is getting stuck. As the disease progresses, swallowing can become increasingly compromised and food/liquid can enter the lungs, causing aspiration pneumonia. Aspiration pneumonia is the leading cause of death in Parkinson’s. It is

Aspiration pneumonia is a type of pneumonia that might occur if a person breathes something in instead of swallowing it. The germs from food particles, saliva, vomit, or other substances may infect the airways and lead to aspiration pneumonia. Healthy lungs can usually handle the bacteria from these accidents and get rid of as much of it as possible by causing a person to cough. Those who have impaired coughing ability, however, may not be able to. People who have trouble cou

MSA is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by a combination of symptoms that affect both the autonomic nervous system and movement. The symptoms reflect the progressive loss of function of different types of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. MSA is a rare disease, affecting potentially 15,000 to 50,000 Americans. Symptoms tend to appear in a person’s 50s and advance rapidly over the course of 5 to 10 years, with progressive loss of motor function. W

For the millions of people throughout the world with multiple sclerosis, symptoms can be debilitating, especially when it comes to speech difficulties and swallowing problems. Given that many of the muscles used in speech are also used in swallowing, it’s not surprising that MS patients with speech impediments may also have difficulties in that area. Swallowing problems, referred to as dysphagia, result from damage to the nerves that control the muscles in the mouth and throa

While a person who is aspirating may have a runny nose, watery eyes, and cough, the presence of only a runny nose while eating is not a predictor of dysphagia. It’s called gustatory rhinitis, and it’s completely normal, especially while eating hot and/or spicy food. Just about any kind of food can cause the condition, but spicy foods are common culprits. The symptoms usually go away within a few minutes once you stop eating the trigger food. This condition tends to be more co

The most common symptom of COVID-19 in critically ill patients is acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). The majority of patients admitted to the hospital report symptoms of shortness of breath and cough, and many of them end up with invasive or noninvasive respiratory support in the intensive care unit (ICU). Among patients in the ICU, a frequent complication following intubation (after extubation) is oropharyngeal dysphagia: a type of swallowing disorder that arises du

One of the biggest fears that people have when they suffer from anxiety is that their anxiety symptoms are not anxiety symptoms at all. They worry that they may have a health problem that may not have been discovered yet, and that doctors have been misdiagnosing them with anxiety for years. That's a big problem for those suffering from anxiety, because when you're worried that you have something more than anxiety, you'll find that your anxiety increases every day. You become