Therapeutic Exercises for Strengthening Suprahyoid Muscles / 대한연하장애학회지

ABSTRACT

Suprahyoid muscles play an important role in normal swallowing by providing muscle contractions involved in airway protection and upper esophageal sphincter opening. However, these muscles can be weakened by neurological disease or aging, which can result in pharyngeal dysphagia. Therefore, strengthening of the suprahyoid muscles is a clinically important treatment. In addition, it is important to know exactly how and which method is optimal. Many therapeutic exercise methods have been reported to strengthen the suprahyoid muscles, and new methods related to this have recently been reported. Therefore, this study will briefly summarize the representative traditional methods and the recently reported, relatively new methods for strengthening the suprahyoid muscles.