 Hey everybody, Dr. O here. In this short video I just want to highlight the three parts of the pharynx and the only reason I'm doing so is because they can be kind of crowded out in some of the other images that we're talking about and it's important that you know them because they're involved in two major systems, the respiratory system here and then also the digestive system. So as you can see that the pharynx is a shared tube by both your nose and your mouth and it's going to carry food or air or drink down to either the esophagus if you swallow it and it's part of the digestive system or the trachea if it's going to head down the rest of the conducting system and get to the gas exchange surface of your lungs. So the three parts as you can see here the nasopharynx on the top is the part that's directly behind and attached to your nasal cavity, the oropharynx, oro meaning mouth, the oropharynx is the portion of the pharynx behind the mouth, then the laryngeal pharynx is the part at the bottom and it's called that because it attaches to the larynx and as you can see here the top of the larynx, the lid of the larynx is the epiglottis you've probably heard of that this elastic tissue that covers so really when you swallow what's cool about the pharynx is when you swallow your pharynx travels up maybe you've felt that I've ever had a really bad sore throat when you swallow you can feel the pharynx climb up and as that happens your soft palate flips up which covers your nasal cavity and the epiglottis flips down which covers your glottis that way when you swallow there's basically three places that food or drink could go up out your nose don't want that to happen down the wrong pipe into your trachea definitely don't want that to happen or down the esophagus so swallowing is really all about the soft palate and the epiglottis blocking the other two entrances or exits so that the only way food and drink goes is down into your esophagus so that's obviously important as you get older the epiglottis gets real stiff and maybe even drinking something like water would start to be a problem so a lot of people living in long-term care facilities need water thickeners or thickened water to make sure that water does travel down the esophagus to the stomach and not into your airways where it can lead to pneumonia all right so those are the three parts of the pharynx like I said somewhat important here with the respiratory system but even more so with the digestive system I hope this helps have a wonderful day be blessed