# Nasal regurgitation: plain-language definition

Canonical: [https://followyourswallow.com/glossary/nasal-regurgitation](https://followyourswallow.com/glossary/nasal-regurgitation)

Nasal regurgitation means some food or liquid traveled up toward the back of the nose during a swallow instead of going down the throat.

## In plain language

At the back of the roof of your mouth is a soft, movable flap called the soft palate. When you swallow, it lifts and presses back against the wall of the throat, sealing off the passage that leads up to the nose. Clinicians call that closing motion velopharyngeal closure, and they call the mouthful of food or liquid being swallowed a bolus. Nasal regurgitation means the seal was not complete on that swallow, so some of the bolus traveled up toward the space behind the nose rather than down the throat. It can involve liquids or solids.

A report may write this as nasopharyngeal regurgitation or nasopharyngeal reflux. Some reports use those two phrases for slightly different things: material reaching the back of the nasal cavity, versus material that actually comes out of the nose. It can be seen during a modified barium swallow study, a moving x-ray of swallowing in which the lift of the soft palate is one of the movements clinicians grade. It can also be seen during a FEES exam, in which a thin camera is passed through the nose to look at the throat; velopharyngeal closure is one of the things that view can check. Outside of a study, nasal regurgitation is one of the things people with oropharyngeal dysphagia, meaning swallowing trouble in the mouth and throat, commonly report, alongside coughing, choking, and drooling.

This is a description of what one moving part did on the swallows that were filmed, not a diagnosis by itself. It sits alongside the other observations from the same study. The same soft palate seal is used for speech as well as for swallowing, so the soft palate may be mentioned in more than one place in a report, or in a speech note as well as a swallowing note. What any of it means for a particular person depends on the rest of the study and the whole clinical picture, which is a conversation for the team who ran the exam.


## Why a clinician looks at this

An SLP notes this because closing off the nose is one of the discrete jobs a swallow has to do, and the report is recording whether that job got done on the swallows that were observed. Writing it down tells the team which part of the sequence to look at more closely, and it is one of the things clinicians ask about and watch for when someone is having trouble swallowing. It does not explain why it happened, and seeing the phrase defined here does not tell you anything about your own result.

## Sources

- [Young A, Spinner A. "Velopharyngeal Insufficiency." StatPearls [Internet]. StatPearls Publishing; last updated January 12, 2023. NCBI Bookshelf ID: NBK563149.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK563149/)
- [Physiology, Swallowing. StatPearls [Internet]. NCBI Bookshelf ID: NBK541071 — describes soft palate elevation sealing the nasopharynx during the pharyngeal phase.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK541071/)
- [The Role of Imaging Modalities in Diagnosing Dysphagia: A Clinical Review. Cureus, 2021. PMC8405125 — lists nasal regurgitation among oropharyngeal dysphagia presentations and notes FEES assessment of velopharyngeal closure.](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8405125/)
- [Findings of a videofluoroscopic swallowing study in patients with dysphagia. Frontiers in Neurology, 2023. PMC10441781 — grades soft palate lift function as a videofluoroscopic parameter.](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10441781/)
- [Understanding your child's videofluoroscopic swallow study report. Evelina London Children's Hospital, NHS — patient leaflet listing "nasopharyngeal reflux / regurgitation" as a report term and distinguishing it from laryngeal penetration.](https://www.evelinalondon.nhs.uk/resources/patient-information/Understanding-your-childs-videofluoroscopic-swallow-study-report.pdf)

Source checked: 2026-08-17

Clinical review: SLP review in progress

## Safety

This is a general definition, not an interpretation of a person's report. Ask the clinician who performed the study what the term means for that person.