[Dysphagia] mouth breather

[RBeecher at chw.org (Beecher, Robert)]

Therapy will likely have no benefit until she can breathe comfortably through her nose during activity.  The deviated septum and enlarged turbinates restrict her nasal airway.  As a result of this restriction, her airway resistance is increased to the point that she switches to oral breathing.  It is similar to when you have significant nasal congestion.  She should see an ENT to determine what to do about her nasal airway first.  She may need therapy after the airway is managed.

Bob

Robert Beecher, M.S., CCC-SLP
Senior Speech/Language Pathologist
Masters Family Speech and Hearing Center
Children's Hospital of Wisconsin
Milwaukee, WI


 -----Original Message-----
From: 	dysphagia-bounces@b9.com [mailto:dysphagia-bounces@b9.com]  On Behalf Of Ron McClanahan
Sent:	Wednesday, September 15, 2004 7:52 PM
To:	dysphagia@b9.com
Subject:	[Dysphagia] mouth breather

This isn't really related to swallowing but know there's a wealth of info out there....a parent called me...her 14 yr old has a hx of deviated septum and enlarged turbinates...she has tongue thrust and habit of mouth breathing...she has a 'drooping' lower lip according to mom and wondered if therapy would do any good....the dentist gave them some ex (tongue thrust I suppose as it was affecting teeth after braces were removed)....anyway, the girl still mouth breathes...I thought of video-taping her and show how she looks...maybe 10 min a day concentrate on breathing thru her nose...any other ideas???Doubt insurance will pay as no "speech" deficit.....thanks for any responses......
_______________________________________________
Dysphagia mailing list
Dysphagia@b9.com
http://lists.b9.com/mailman/listinfo/dysphagia


**************************
Children's Hospital and Health System recognizes that unencrypted e-mail is insecure and does not guarantee confidentiality.  The confidentiality of replies to this message cannot be guaranteed unless the replies are encrypted.