Maintenance of the pharyngeal airway

Abstract

The effect of cervical extension, cervical flexion, mandible displacement, tongue displacement, and effortful increase in intrathoracic pressure on the pharyngeal airway of ten normal adults is described from radiographic observations. Maintenance of the airway is viewed as being effected by interaction between cervical postural and pharyngeal muscles. Identification of the function of these mechanisms might provide new criteria for evaluation of pharyngeal impairment. The performance of extension was especially remarkable because of the consistency of the subjects' postural and pharyngeal responses to spoken command. The pharyngeal airway of each subject was distinctively expanded. The relationship between postural and pharyngeal structures has procedural implications for speech investigations. Submitted on August 14, 1961