What is silent aspiration?

Silent aspiration is when you accidentally inhale food, liquid or other material into your trachea (windpipe or airway) and you don't know it. Normally, when you eat or drink, nerves and muscles in your mouth and throat work together to keep food or liquids out of your airway and lungs.


What is the difference between aspiration and silent aspiration?

overt aspiration symptoms. Symptoms of aspiration usually appear after eating, drinking, vomiting, or an episode of heartburn. Silent aspiration usually has no symptoms, and people aren't always aware that fluids or stomach contents have entered their lungs.

Who is at risk for silent aspiration?

Silent aspiration was documented in 41% of patients with laryngeal cleft, 41% of patients with laryngomalacia, and 54% of patients with unilateral vocal fold paralysis.


Can silent aspiration cause death?

Aspiration can lead to serious health issues such as pneumonia and chronic lung scarring. Aspiration pneumonia is known as a 'silent killer' and it can become deadly without many symptoms.

How do you assess silent aspiration?

Several methods can be used to determine whether aspiration is occurring, including bedside swallowing assessment by a specially trained speech pathologist, videofluoroscopy (also known as a modified barium swallow test), bronchoscopy, and fiber endoscopy.


Dysphagia and Aspirations, what is it?



How do I stop silent aspiration?

Preventing Aspiration
  1. Avoid distractions when you're eating and drinking, such as talking on the phone or watching TV.
  2. Cut your food into small, bite-sized pieces. ...
  3. Eat and drink slowly.
  4. Sit up straight when eating or drinking, if you can.
  5. If you're eating or drinking in bed, use a wedge pillow to lift yourself up.


What does silent aspiration feel like?

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.

How do you tell if a patient has aspirated?

Aspiration from dysphagia can cause symptoms such as:
  1. Feeling that food is sticking in your throat or coming back into your mouth.
  2. Pain when swallowing.
  3. Trouble starting a swallow.
  4. Coughing or wheezing after eating.
  5. Coughing while drinking liquids or eating solids.
  6. Chest discomfort or heartburn.


Can aspiration heal on its own?

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.

What are the first signs of aspiration pneumonia?

Symptoms may include any of the following:
  • Chest pain.
  • Coughing up foul-smelling, greenish or dark phlegm (sputum), or phlegm that contains pus or blood.
  • Fatigue.
  • Fever.
  • Shortness of breath.
  • Wheezing.
  • Breath odor.
  • Excessive sweating.


What is the life expectancy of dysphagia?

In patients with significant dysphagia and dementia we know that survival is equally short with and without a feeding tube, around 6 months.


How do I know if food went into my lungs?

Immediate symptoms of foreign body aspiration
  1. Choking.
  2. Coughing.
  3. Difficulty breathing and shortness of breath.
  4. Difficulty speaking.
  5. Wheezing or stridor. Stridor is a particular kind of wheeze that often produces a loud, single-pitch noise, usually during inhalation. ...
  6. Bluish tinge to the skin.


How long after aspiration do symptoms occur?

Symptoms of aspiration (inhaling something like secretions) start very quickly, even one to two hours after you inhale something you shouldn't have. It may take a day or two for pneumonia to develop.

What are two signs of aspiration?

Aspiration Symptoms
  • Feel something stuck in your throat.
  • Hurt when you swallow, or it's hard to do.
  • Cough while or after you eat or drink.
  • Feel congested after you eat or drink.
  • Have a gurgling or "wet-sounding" voice when you eat.


Can aspiration cause sudden death?

The incidence of sudden death from food asphyxiation is relatively low. An older study of hospitalized adult patients, however, found food asphyxiation as a cause of death in 14 of 1,087 (1.3%) autopsies performed over 5 years. Those patients died suddenly, during or shortly after meals.

What are four signs of aspiration?

Aspiration can cause symptoms including:
  • coughing when drinking, particularly with thin liquids.
  • difficulty feeding.
  • frequent respiratory infections or recurrent pneumonia.
  • noisy breathing while drinking.
  • gagging during meals.
  • back arching during feeding.
  • skin turning a bluish color.


Can silent aspiration be cured?

The good news is that treatment for the underlying cause can control or cure silent aspiration. Babies sometimes grow out of it as their nerves and muscles continue to develop and learn to work together.


Can the lungs clear aspirated food?

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.

Can you live from aspiration?

While the mortality rate of aspiration pneumonia depends on complications of the disease, the 30-day mortality rate hovers around 21%, with a higher rate of 29.7% in hospital-associated aspiration pneumonia. For uncomplicated pneumonia, the mortality rate is still high, hovering around 5%.

How do doctors check for aspiration?

The videofluorographic swallowing study (VFSS) is the definitive test to identify aspiration and other abnormalities of swallowing.


What foods help silent aspiration?

They include soft, cooked, or mashed fruits or vegetables, soft or ground meats moist with gravy, cottage cheese, peanut butter, and soft scrambled eggs. You should avoid crackers, nuts, and other dry foods.

What is the best sleeping position to avoid aspiration?

Elevated right-side lying (with physician/physical therapist approval). Stomach empties more efficiently due to gravity in this position.

What medicine helps with aspiration?

Metoclopramide (Reglan, Clopra, Maxolon)


How do I get food out of my lungs?

If a small piece of food has really entered the lungs, then a pulmonologist will need to evaluate you as to whether you will need a procedure known as a bronchoscopy to remove it.

What is the most common cause of aspiration?

Aspiration is a common problem that can occur in healthy or sick patients wherein pharyngeal secretions, food material, or gastric secretions enter the larynx and trachea and can descend into the lungs, causing an acute or chronic inflammatory reaction.