Developing and Finding a Best Sensor to Detect Thyroid Cartilage Excursion in Non-Invasive Swallowing Study: Comparison of Four Sensors Detecting the Thyroid Cartilage Excursion during Swallowing

Background: Swallowing is an important activity of daily living for adequate nutrition and hydration as a basic life supporting. To study the swallowing function precisely is necessary. Recently, more researches have focused and emphasized of an important role of using non-invasive and portable assessment systems in swallowing studies. Also, this has become a new research trend in swallowing study. However, it is crucially important to monitor the thyroid cartilage excursion due to which is indirectly represented the activities of pharyngeal phase during swallowing. Nevertheless, new sensors including piezo-electrical sensor, force sensing resistor (FSR), and bend sensor, have been used in non-invasive swallowing. But, which is the best has not been tested and examined, and developing new sensors is important. Method and procedure: 60 normal subjects, 30males and 30 females, aged 20-60 years old, will be recruited in this two years study. The swallowing bio-signals will be recorded under 3 different boluses conditions, including volume of 1ml, 5ml, and 10ml of room temperature water boluses, for 3 repeats of each water bolus swallowing. Biopac system will be used to detect the oropharyngeal swallowing and respiration simultaneously, and the motion signals of thyroid cartilage excursion will be detected by four types of sensors, including (1) a force sensing resistor (FSR)(our previous design), (2) a piezo-electrical sensor(our old design), (3) piezo-capacitive sensors (our new design), and (4) a bend sensor. To confirm the swallowing thyroid cartilage excursion activities, the contraction of submentalis by surface electromyography and respiration monitoring by nasal airflow will be used as references to make sure the detected and analyzed signal of each swallow without piece-meal deglutition. The data of thyroid cartilage excursion will be recorded on-line and analyzed off-line. For data analysis, an automated analystics software using MATLAB will be used. The further comparison of thyroid cartilage excursion signals, including on-set, off-set, duration, amplitude, and waveforms, will be compared between four different types of sensors. For statistics, one-way ANOVA or Kruskal-Wallis test will be used to test the difference between sensor groups. If significant difference was shown, the Post-hoc test will be performed to find out the difference between which two sensors. The signals differences between sensors will help us to decide which type of four sensors is the best for thyroid excursion monitoring during swallowing study. Moreover, our results in this study will be useful for sensor choice and tool design in further non-invasive swallowing study, also in clinical care and application. Aim: The aims of the present study are: (1) to develop a new sensor (2) to examine and determine which sensor is the best to detect thyroid cartilage excursion during swallowing.

Project ID:PC10507-0243
External Project ID:MOST105-2314-B182-038