Upper airway assessment and its implications for interventions by respiratory physiotherapists.

We present a case report demonstrating that it is feasible to visualize the upper airways during nasotracheal suctioning as an objective means to guide the more accurate successful insertion of the suction catheter past the vocal folds. Rather than "blind" placement of nasotracheal suction catheters visualization using transnasal laryngoscopy should be useful to increase chances of passing through the vocal folds.