Drool quantification: noninvasive technique.

Drooling can lead to physical and psychologic problems for the 10-13% of all persons with cerebral palsy who exhibit this symptom. Different therapeutic attempts have been made to eliminate drooling, ranging from speech therapy to radical surgery. However, the effectiveness of all previous approaches is open to question since no satisfactory drool quantification technique has been devised. This paper describes a new inexpensive drool quantification system that has been tested with a number of cerebral palsy subjects. The system provides measures of drooled saliva to within 0.2ml, and allows for the possibility of more objective studies related to natural variations in drooling (for example, diurnal rhythms or activity levels) and clinical outcome studies of therapeutic interventions.