What is a swallowing disorder?
You may hear your healthcare worker or speech language pathologist refer to your swallowing disorder as dysphagia (dis-FAY-juh). Dysphagia is the technical term for impaired ability to move food from the mouth to the stomach. During a normal swallow, food is put into the mouth, chewed thoroughly, then pushed to the back of the mouth by the tongue. The food then leaves the mouth and enters the pharynx (common pathway for food and air), where the brain triggers an involuntary swallow reflex (pharyngeal swallow).
