Silent aspiration is when you accidentally inhale food, liquid or other material into your trachea (windpipe or airway) and you don't know it.
Aspiration pneumonia is known as a 'silent killer' and it can become deadly without many symptoms. People prone to aspiration have reduced cough reflexes, so they may not notice themselves choking or induce a cough when they aspirate. Choking is a significant concern for someone with swallowing issues.
Laryngeal cleft, laryngomalacia, unilateral vocal fold paralysis, developmental delay, epilepsy/seizures, syndrome, and congenital heart disease were all associated with silent aspiration.
Aspiration Diagnosis
Your doctor will ask about your symptoms and do a physical exam. They might look closely at your mouth and cheeks. They may also recommend that you see a specialist called a speech-language pathologist, who can check for problems with your swallowing muscles.
Mechanisms associated with silent aspiration may include central or local weakness/incoordination of the pharyngeal musculature, reduced laryngopharyngeal sensation, impaired ability to produce a reflexive cough, and low substance P or dopamine levels.
Aspiration pneumonia is a complication of pulmonary aspiration, or the inhalation of food, liquid or vomit into the lungs. When the respiratory system is healthy and strong, pulmonary aspiration often clears up on its own.
An object inhaled into the airways can cause an obstruction in the bronchi, which are the two passageways that deliver air into the lungs. Foreign bodies can also become lodged in the larynx/voice box and the trachea/windpipe.
Most people who get aspiration pneumonia and get treatment will survive. The prognosis for aspiration pneumonia also depends on your overall health and other conditions that you may have and how sick you were when you started treatment.
Your health care provider will use a stethoscope to listen for crackles or abnormal breath sounds in your chest. Tapping on your chest wall (percussion) helps the provider listen and feel for abnormal sounds in your chest. If pneumonia is suspected, your provider will likely order a chest x-ray.
The common clinical features that should raise suspicion for aspiration include sudden onset dyspnea, fever, hypoxemia, radiological findings of bilateral infiltrates, and crackles on lung auscultation in a hospitalized patient.
There's probably been a time when you swallowed some food or drink and it felt like it went down the wrong pipe. That's when a bit of food or liquid may have headed toward your lungs rather than your stomach. Most of the time when this happens, you'll cough, and the food or liquid will clear out of your airway.
Share on Pinterest Symptoms of aspiration can include coughing, wheezing, and painful swallowing. Pulmonary aspiration is a condition that occurs when a person inhales a foreign substance into their windpipe and lungs. It often happens when something a person is eating or drinking goes down the wrong way.
Treatment includes supplemental oxygen, steroids, or help from a breathing machine. Depending on the cause of chronic aspiration, you may require surgery. For example, you may get surgery for a feeding tube if you have swallowing problems that don't respond to treatment.
Sometimes, simple diet changes are all that is needed to prevent aspiration. Other cases may need swallowing therapy. During therapy, exercises for swallowing strengthen and coordinate the muscles used in swallowing. Some swallowing problems may need surgery.
The videofluorographic swallowing study (VFSS) is the definitive test to identify aspiration and other abnormalities of swallowing.
The classic symptoms of aspiration are a cough, wet or congested breathing, and watery eyes after swallowing during drinking or eating, or when introducing solid foods (such as with baby-led weaning). In babies, aspiration might also produce a wet or gurgling noise during or after breastfeeding.
Inhaling a substance into your lungs can cause a lung inflammation and infection (aspiration pneumonia). The situation may be more serious when: Signs of choking (complete airway obstruction) are present.
Aspiration can increase your risk of pneumonia and lead to severe infection or tissue damage. Aspiration pneumonia is a lung infection in which the lung gets inflamed and filled with fluid. Serious symptoms may include: Chest discomfort or heartburn.
Some non-food items can be seen in the airway or lungs using a traditional X-ray. However, most food, vegetable matter and plastic toys won't appear on chest X-ray films. Inspiratory and expiratory phase X-ray. These are X-rays taken when the child has inhaled and then exhaled the air out of their lungs.
When to see a doctor. If you're still coughing two to four hours after aspiration or if blood appears, call a doctor. Watch for fever, chills, and/or a cough that produces discolored mucus or sharp stabbing chest pain.
Aspiration is common, even in healthy patients.
The following treatment should be carried out: Head down in right lateral position to drain vomit from airway. Suction. Laryngoscopy to clear the airway. Bronchoscophy if asphyxiated by solid material.
There are three types of aspiration: Large foreign bodies or food particles. Liquid aspiration. Bacterial aspiration.