Speech Therapy in the Management of Chronic Cough

The efficacy of management of chronic cough in adults is limited. Speech and language intervention (speech therapy) is one of the few methods which seem to be useful in management of persistent chronic cough. This method has not been available for patients with cough in Poland so far.

The aim of the study is to implement speech therapy to the management plan of patients with difficult-to-treat chronic cough and to analyze its efficacy in this particular group.

Patients, who are diagnosed and unsuccessfully managed because of difficult-to treat chronic cough, will be offered speech and language intervention as an added therapy. It is based on the technique described by Vertigan et al.The entire therapy will consist of eight sessions once a week.

Cough severity, its influence on quality of life and cough challenge test with capsaicin will be assessed by Visual Analogue Scale, Leicester Cough Questionnaire and cough challenge test with capsaicin will be performed before and after speech therapy in every patient to analyze its effectiveness

Inclusion criteria

• age between 18 and 80 years,
• chronic cough lasting more than six months
• earlier thorough diagnosing of cough reason
• unsuccessful cough management despite at least 3 months of earlier treatment
• no symptoms of any airway infection during last 4 weeks.

Exclusion criteria

• lack of opportunity to participate in speech therapy sessions
• cough lasting less than 6 months
• active cigarette smoking
• taking ACE inhibitors
• symptoms of airway infection (other than cough).