SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DETECTING SWALLOWING ACTIVITY

摘要

A system and method for detecting swallowing activity is provided. In an
embodiment, a method includes receiving an electronic signal from an
acceleronic signal from an accelerometer that represents swallowing activity,
extracting at least two features from the signal, classifying the signal as a
type of swallowing activity based on the extracted features, and generating an
output of the classification. Exemplary activities include swallows,
aspirations, movement and vocal artifacts. By indicating whether an activity
is a swallow or an aspiration, the manner in which a patient afflicted with an
increased likelihood for aspirations is fed can be adjusted to increase the
likelihood of achieving a swallow instead of an aspiration during feeding. In
turn this could reduce hospitalizations for aspiration pneumonia in patients
with acute or chronic injury.