ABSTRACT
The larynx is a biological valve located at the junction of the respiratory and digestive tracts. Its evolutionary origins lie in the need to protect the lungs of amphibious organisms from water, and airway protection remains its most important biological task. For this, it depends on a sensitive neural system that responds to a wide variety of stimuli, both mechanical and chemical, to trigger laryngeal closure. The fundamentals – careful history taking and thorough examination – remain the same, the task of neurolaryngological diagnosis differs in several important ways from the standard laryngeal evaluation. Vocal fold paralysis (VFP) may appear in the wake of a stroke. The close proximity of the nucleus ambiguus to other a cranial nerve nuclei dictates that VFP is virtually never an isolated finding; almost always, it is found in conjunction with other deficits, a circumstance that adds to its morbidity.
