A Clinical Study of Palatal lift for treatment of velopharyngeal incompetency

ABSTRACT

Velopharyngeal function refers to the combined activity of the soft palate and pharynx in closing and opening the velopharyngeal port to the required degree. In normal speech, various muscles of palate & pharynx function as sphincter and occlude the oropharynx from the nasopharynx during the production of oral consonant sounds. Inadequate velopharyngeal function caused by neurologic disorder-cerebral apoplexy, regressive diseases-disseminated sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, congenital deformity-cleft palate, cerebral palsy and etc. may result in abnormal speech characterized by hypernasality, nasal emission and decreased intelligibility of speech due to weak consonant production. In our study, we constructed speech aids prosthesis-Palatal lift in acquired idiophathic VPI patient and assessed velopharyngeal function with various diagnostic instruments which can evaluate the speech characteristics objectively.