Dysphagia is a disease in which people find it difficult to swallow and experience pain which is known as odynophagia while swallowing. In some people the condition is so acute that they cannot swallow their own saliva or even liquid foods and soft foods. Eating becomes a big problem and they cannot ingest enough food to sustain or nourish their body which leads to other health problems. This happens when any of the structures involved in the process of swallowing get affected. There could be a problem with neural control which makes the tongue and the cheek muscles weak and they cannot move the food around in their mouth to chew it. Sometimes a stroke could bring on such a problem or even disorders with the esophagus. Pathologists who treat speech and language as well as doctors may evaluate this problem with several tests which are conducted for various steps of swallowing. One such Dysphagia test is FEESST or Flexible Endoscopic Evaluation of Swallowing with Sensory Testing. This Dysphagia test is done with a tube which is made of fiberoptic material and has a light at the end of it and this examines the mechanism of swallowing liquids, food and air stimuli.
A Standardized test for dysphagia comprises of two sets of materials which are orally ingestible being given to the patient. The person has to ingest one and then the next while the doctors assess the response and the reaction of the patient to both types of material. This helps the doctors to evaluate the amount of difficulty the person has in swallowing. Often the difficulty leads to a person choking as the food or liquid goes into the lungs instead of down the gullet.
There are several different methods of Dysphagia testing. Some of the methods are the Video fluoroscopic swallow study or Esophagram in which the esophagus is seen on an x-ray while the patient is made to swallow a barium liquid; by using a fiber optic tube which has a camera attached to it with a light so that the swallowing can be evaluated; image scanning with various scans like a CT scan, MRI scan or a PET scan. For certain patients a biopsy is conducted by removing a minute tissue to see if there is any problem with the muscle of the esophagus.
Other tests are the Bravo capsule pH test, Impedance probe, pH probe, esophageal manometry and the Endoscopy.