With data gleaned from high-speed cameras, coaches can identify split-second flaws in a baseball pitcher's delivery or a golfer's swing that cannot be seen by the naked eye, revolutionizing sports for players and spectators. The same technology is being adapted to provide a wealth of new information for researchers looking to improve or restore and swallowing function for patients. "Voice and swallowing both really go hand in hand," said the University of Cincinnati's Rebecca Howell, MD.
"As long as they're functioning, nobody thinks anything of it until it's taken away from you. But they both affect our ability to connect with others." Howell and her colleagues are using tiny high-speed cameras placed through the patient's nose to look at the throat and learn more about the mechanics of speaking and swallowing.
"The vibration of the vocal cords themselves, which give us our voice, and swallowing both go faster than the human eye," said Howell, associate professor in the Divisions of Otolaryngology and Head & Neck Surgery, Laryngology Fellowship program director in UC's College of Medicine, and a practicing surgeon and director of the UC Health Swallowing Center. "By using high-speed technology, we're able to see more. We're talking four milliseconds, so it's a very short time period.
" The high-speed images provide a view of the physiology of voice mechanics and swallowing that was previously impossible to observe. A current study is enrolling both healthy human patients and .
