Dysphagia

Oropharyngeal dysphagia often makes it difficult to move food to the back of your mouth to swallow, causing coughing and choking when you eat or drink. Some of the many conditions that can cause oropharyngeal dysphagia include:

• Advanced age
• Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)
• Dementia
• Head and neck cancer
• Huntington’s disease
• Parkinson’s disease
• Stroke
• Surgery
• Traumatic brain injury

Learn About Oropharyngeal Dysphagia
This type of dysphagia is typically treated with personalized swallow therapy from speech-language pathologists. Programs may include rehabilitative swallowing exercises and techniques to improve the safety, efficiency, or comfort of swallowing.

Esophageal dysphagia can be caused by a physical blockage preventing food and drink from passing easily through the esophagus, or it can result from a motility disorder that prevents the esophagus from moving, squeezing, or relaxing normally. Some common causes of esophageal dysphagia include:

• Scar tissue in the esophagus (strictures)
• Narrowing of the esophagus (stenosis)
• Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD)
• Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE)
• Achalasia or other motility disorders such as Jackhammer esophagus
• A benign or cancerous growth or blockage
• Zenker’s diverticulum

Learn About Esophageal Dysphagia 
We use a variety of tests to diagnose esophageal dysphagia. It can often be alleviated with minimally invasive endoscopic procedures but sometimes requires surgery.