Patients with a chronic cough that persists even after treatment usually see a few specialists and have lingering triggers that cause their cough, explained Laurie Slovarp, PhD, CCC-SLP, associate professor in the School of Speech, Language, Hearing, and Occupational Sciences at University of Montana.
Patients with a chronic cough that persists even after treatment usually see a few specialists and have lingering triggers that cause their cough, explained Laurie Slovarp, PhD, CCC-SLP, associate professor in the School of Speech, Language, Hearing, and Occupational Sciences at University of Montana.
How is chronic cough typically diagnosed and evaluated?
The basic definition of a chronic cough is a cough that you've had for over 8 weeks. So, in that regard, it's a really easy diagnosis and primary care physicians diagnose it all the time.
The type of cough that I treat is referred to as a few different names. It's usually called refractory chronic cough or unexplained chronic cough or difficult-to-treat chronic cough. And those all mean pretty similar things. And really, they just have already gone through primary care, and probably seen a few specialists, and they're still coughing, despite assessing for different things like reflux, post-nasal drip, those types of things, and even treating for those things.
And so, once they get to me, as a speech pathologist, they've already gone through a gamut of testing and trials of different medications and treatments that have either helped some but not completely or haven't helped at all.
And most of these patients have what we call cough hypersensitivity syndrome. And so even though the cough started, usually with something else, whether it was a viral upper respiratory infection, or chronic reflux, or just a chronic cough–inducing illness, like bronchitis, those are the things that usually kind of start the cough, but then the hypersensitivity that results from that is prolonged and we believe it's perpetuated by the cough itself.
So, you can treat all the underlying causes, but if you now have increased triggers, other than that cause, every time you cough in response to that trigger, you're just continuing it. So, when I'm diagnosing a patient, I'm really looking for symptoms of cough hypersensitivity because that's specifically what we treat. So, things like do they cough to strong smells like perfumes laundry soaps? Cold air is a common trigger. Talking and laughing are common triggers in patients with cough hypersensitivity. And it's generally a dry cough.
So those are the big things that we're looking at.
ATS 2024: Bridging the Past, Present, and Future of Respiratory Care
May 16th 2024The application of artificial intelligence in medicine is anticipated as a highlight of ATS 2024, with sessions exploring its applications in research, radiological interpretation, and pediatric pulmonology.
Read More
Frameworks for Advancing Health Equity: Urban Health Outreach
May 9th 2024In the series debut episode of "Frameworks for Advancing Health Equity," Mary Sligh, CRNP, and Chelsea Chappars, of Allegheny Health Network, explain how the Urban Health Outreach program aims to improve health equity for individuals experiencing homelessness.
Listen
CMS Medicare Final Rule: Advancing Benefits, Competition, and Consumer Protection
May 7th 2024On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we're talking with Karen Iapoce, senior director of government products and programs at ZeOmega, about the recent CMS final rule on Medicare Part D and Medicare Advantage.
Listen
Congress Urged to Repeal Comstock Act Threatening Reproductive Rights and Public Health
May 16th 2024In a joint letter addressed to Congress, Healthcare Across Borders, Take Back the Court Action Fund, and UltraViolet Action called out the resurgence of the Comstock Act, urging immediate action to repeal this century-old law that threatens reproductive rights and public health in the US.
Read More
Atypical Marker Expression in T-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia/Lymphoma
May 15th 2024Two unique case reports highlight the diagnostic challenges and critical importance of comprehensive immunophenotyping in cases of T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia/lymphoma that present without typical immaturity markers but with rare γδ T-cell receptor expression.
Read More