Discussion
dysphagia, HNC, cough, head and neck cancer, swallowing impairments, Cough
DYSPHAGIA, HEAD AND NECK CANCER
A growing number of studies have demonstrated the reliability of assessing coughing as a clinical marker of dysphagia. One has observed in daily clinical practice that subjective scoring of coughing entails low inter-rater agreement and inconsistencies amongst professional caregivers. Cough airflow-related measures are currently regarded as reliable markers (gold standard) of dysphagia and P/A. However, aerodynamic equipment is not widely available in clinical practice, and it may interfere with an evaluation in a natural setting (during a meal, for instance) because of the presence of a pipe or facemask.With regard to acoustic analysis, no reliable acoustic cough-related features have been reported yet for assessing RAD in HNC patients, nor for assessing dysphagia and P/A in other populations. The overall goal of our research is to develop methods of acoustic cough analysis with a view to identifying acoustic features as possible markers of swallowing impairments in HNC patients following head and neck cancer treatment. We believe that objective and automatic cough sound analyses may be easily implemented in a natural setting. We aim at developing software running on widely available devices and recording signals with a skin-contact microphone, which does not disturb food intake and does not record external environmental noise.