[Dysphagia] Bronchospasm

[cmandersn223 at rogers.com (Sharon Manders)]

Hi,

I have a question for the group. One of our respirologists has recently 
been asking me if bronchospasm can worsen or cause aspiration. We have 
a patient who has COPD and on his last very recent admit, one of my 
colleagues saw him and found no dysphagia. I saw him this time and his 
breathing was much worse and the respirologist asked me to reassess. 
The patient's lungs had been okay on discharge, but he was back just a 
few days later for a recurrence of his COPD/exacerbation. The MD was 
running out of ideas as to why and we were both thinking that since his 
breathing was so horrible that this may have been causing difficulty 
when swallowing. It turns out today that some MD over the weekend 
figured out he had epiglottitis and after a course of antibiotics was 
started on the weekend, he is now doing very much better.

My main question remains: can bronchospasm cause aspiration? It seems 
quite possible to me. Anyone have any particular experience, or could 
recommend some articles or a place to start? A medline search for 
bronchospasm, dysphagia, deglutition disorders and bronchial spasm only 
gave me 6 articles, none of which were particularly helpful.

Also, are people seeing epiglottitis very often?

Thanks in advance,

Sharon