Dr Laurie Slovarp Explains How Chronic Cough Impacts Quality of Life

Chronic cough can be very debilitating to a patient's quality of life, explained Laurie Slovarp, PhD, CCC-SLP, associate professor in the School of Speech, Language, Hearing, and Occupational Sciences at University of Montana.

Transcript:

How does chronic cough impact the quality of life of patients with it?

It can be very debilitating. A lot of patients with severe cough hypersensitivity have coughing bouts or spasms where they will cough for several seconds, even several minutes, and they have a hard time catching their breath. They will also sometimes cough until they gag or vomit. As you can imagine, that's really debilitating. If you were in public and you have an episode like that, it draws a lot of attention. A lot of patients have to quit working. I have a ton of patients who don't go to church, go to the movies, go out to dinner, or anything because they're afraid they're going to have a coughing spell, so it's really significant on their quality of life that way. About 50% or more of patients with this chronic cough have depression, and a lot of individuals have also urinary incontinence and also chronic back pain, and it impacts physical and emotional and mental [health].