The clinician's place for dysphagia awareness, evidence-based practice and information.
*This post is sponsored by SimplyThick. Although SimplyThick has paid for this post, I am a huge fan of SimplyThick when liquids need to be thickened! You can visit the SimplyThick Dysphagia Ramblings page here to request free samples.* SimplyThick (you know, the gel thickener) was founded back in 2001 by John Holahan. [...]
The Dysphagia Outreach Project Giving Event 2020 Guest Post By: Jessica Lasky, MS, CCC-SLP and Allison Boyer, MA, CCC-SLP Who We Are The Dysphagia Outreach Project is a 100% volunteer-run 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that was founded in 2019. The mission of the Dysphagia Outreach Project is to provide meaningful assistance to low-income individuals affected by [...]
What have you always wanted to know about IDDSI? Did you know that all things IDDSI are located in one place? Find out where!
The Dysphagia Toolbox I have written about the Dysphagia Toolbox before. The Dysphagia Toolbox used to be a website that offered links to standardized and reliable tools that you can use in dysphagia assessment and with reassessment. [...]
Cognition can impact many facets of life including swallowing. Patients may be confused enough that they don't "recognize" food in their mouth and effectively may not know what to do with that food. For example, when I was working in the acute care hospital, I evaluated a patient in the ICU that had sodium levels [...]
What happens to the sensory aspect of the swallow with extubation? What should we expect with patients that have intubation for more than 48 hours?
Extubation is a hot and heavy topic. Determining the right time to evaluate a patient is critical in the management of these patients.
The First Thing.... Oral Care is one of the first lines in dysphagia management and in the prevention of aspiration pneumonia. What do you know about oral care? Aspiration Aspiration is defined as the inhalation of either oropharyngeal or gastric contents into the lower airways, that is, the act of taking foreign material into the [...]
Inspiratory Muscle Strength Training Inspiratory strength training works on the muscles of inspiration the diaphragm, the intercostals. Inspiration involves contractions of the diaphragm and external intercostals, which increase intrathoracic volume and decreased volume in pressure. Respiration is a recoil from inspiration. Exhalation involves relaxation of the inhalation muscles, recruitment of abdominal and internal intercostals to force [...]
Research Research by Dr. Lazarus and Dr. Robbins has focused heavily on lingual strengthening. Many of these research articles have proven to us that lingual strengthening using resistance such as an IOPI does increase not only tongue strength and at times, tongue mass, but also improves the overall swallow. This same research has also shown us that using [...]