Schwartz, Ryan
(2021)
A Preliminary Investigation of Whether High Resolution Cervical Auscultation Signals Present Variations Between Thin Liquid Barium and Water Swallows.
Master's Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
Dysphagia, commonly referred to as abnormal swallowing, affects millions of people annually. If not diagnosed expeditiously, dysphagia can lead to more severe complications, such as pneumonia, nutritional deficiency, and dehydration. Bedside screening is the first step of dysphagia characterization and is usually based on pass/fail tests in which a nurse observes the patient performing water swallows to look for overt signs of dysphagia such as coughing. Though quick and convenient, bedside screening provides low-level judgment of impairment, lacks standardization, and suffers from subjectivity. Recently, high resolution cervical auscultation (HRCA) has been investigated as a less expensive and non-invasive method to diagnose dysphagia. It has shown strong preliminary evidence of its effectiveness in penetration-aspiration detection as well as multiple swallow kinematics. HRCA signals have been investigated in conjunction with videofluoroscopy exams performed using barium boluses. An HRCA-based bedside screening is highly desirable to expedite initial dysphagia diagnosis and overcome all drawbacks of current pass/fail screening tests. However, all research conducted using HRCA in dysphagia is based on thin liquid barium boluses and thus not guaranteed to provide valid results for water boluses. If HRCA signals show no significant differences between water and thin liquid barium boluses, then the same algorithms developed from thin liquid barium can be directly applied with water. This study investigates the similarities and differences between HRCA signals from thin liquid barium swallows and water swallows. Multiple features from the time, frequency, time-frequency, and information-theoretic domain were extracted from each type of swallow, and a group of linear mixed models was tested to determine the significance of differences. Machine learning classifiers were fit to the data as well to determine if the swallowed material (thin liquid barium or water) can be correctly predicted from an unlabeled set of HRCA signals. The results demonstrated no systematic difference between the HRCA signals of thin liquid barium swallows and water swallows. While no systematic difference exists, the evidence of complete conformity between HRCA signals of both materials was inconclusive. These results must be validated further to demonstrate similarity between the HRCA signals of thin liquid barium swallows and water swallows.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
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| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
|
| ETD Committee: |
| Title | Member | Email Address | Pitt Username | ORCID |
|---|
| Thesis Advisor | Sejdic, Ervin | | | | | Committee Member | Akcakaya, Murat | | | | | Committee Member | Dallal, Ahmed | | | | | Committee Member | Coyle, James | | | |
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| Date: |
3 September 2021 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
28 May 2021 |
| Approval Date: |
3 September 2021 |
| Submission Date: |
8 July 2021 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| Number of Pages: |
53 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Swanson School of Engineering > Electrical and Computer Engineering |
| Degree: |
MS - Master of Science |
| Thesis Type: |
Master's Thesis |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
High Resolution Cervical Auscultation, Dysphagia, Bedside Screening, Thin Liquid Barium, Water |
| Date Deposited: |
03 Sep 2021 15:21 |
| Last Modified: |
03 Sep 2021 15:21 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/41408 |
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