# Sialorrhea (drooling): plain-language definition

Canonical: [https://followyourswallow.com/glossary/sialorrhea-drooling](https://followyourswallow.com/glossary/sialorrhea-drooling)

Sialorrhea is the medical word for saliva escaping the mouth or pooling in the throat, either because more saliva is being made or because swallowing is not clearing it away.

## In plain language

Everyone makes saliva all day long and swallows it without thinking about it. Sialorrhea is the medical word for saliva that is no longer being handled that way. Clinicians sometimes split it into two kinds. One is saliva spilling out the front of the mouth, which is what most people picture when they hear drooling. The other, which is less common, is saliva sliding back over the tongue and gathering in the throat. The second kind does not show on the outside of the mouth.

There are two possible reasons for it. The body can make more saliva than usual, or the usual amount can simply stop being cleared away. In adults with swallowing problems it is more often the second. Parkinson's disease is the best-studied example. Early thinking blamed extra saliva, but later measurements of saliva flow found that people with Parkinson's actually produced less than people without it, and the real difficulty was a reduced ability to clear it. Slow mouth and tongue movement, together with swallowing less often than usual, lets an ordinary amount of saliva pool instead.

Saliva is also part of what a clinician looks at before any food or drink is given. During a FEES, an exam that uses a small camera passed through the nose to view the throat, the examiner notes how much saliva has collected in the throat and around the voice box at rest. That is a description of what was seen at that moment, not a diagnosis on its own. It is recorded alongside everything else observed in the same study.


## Why a clinician looks at this

An SLP pays attention to saliva because it is present in the mouth and throat constantly, whether or not anyone decides to swallow. When secretions gather in the throat, there is more opportunity for some to reach the airway, and research has found that heavier secretion buildup seen during an endoscopic exam tends to occur alongside more penetration and aspiration. That is a pattern observed across groups of patients, not a verdict about any individual. Seeing this word in a report tells you what the clinician observed on that day; it does not tell you what happened in your own airway or what it means for you.

## Sources

- [Isaacson J, Patel S, Torres-Yaghi Y, Pagán F. "Sialorrhea in Parkinson's Disease." Toxins (Basel). 2020;12(11):691. PMC7692771; DOI 10.3390/toxins12110691](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7692771/)
- [Recommendations for a paradigm shift in approach to increase the recognition and treatment of sialorrhea in Parkinson's disease. Clinical Parkinsonism & Related Disorders, 2023 (PMC10643485)](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10643485/)
- [Predictive Power of Pharyngolaryngeal Secretion Accumulations for Penetration and Aspiration in Head and Neck Cancer Patients. Dysphagia, 2025 (PMC12479604)](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12479604/)

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.