
E03 Dysphagia & Dementia Part 2: What we Need to Learn & Unlearn with Jackie Rodriguez
Dysphagia Research BitesShow Notes
Part 2 of this conversation, talks about how changes in the visual field can affect eating and drinking and practical ways to assess this, as well as oral apraxia, enteral feeding and the hills Jackie will die on as an SLP when it comes to End of Life care.
In this episode they cover:
How dementia affects the visual field and what this can mean at mealtimes Practical approaches to assessing vision and how you can compensate for these impairments in your management approach Using sensory strategies at mealtimes, including how something as simple as separating food into individual bowls can support attention and reduce overwhelm Enteral feeding and what the evidence actually says about whether it prevents aspiration pneumonia Jackie's approach to oral apraxia: the tips, tricks and techniques she uses in practice Proactive swallowing therapy and why early intervention matters in this population The hill Jackie dies on when it comes to dysphagia care at end of life Be sure to check out Jackie's ebook: The SLPs Guide to Dementia which you can access through Teachers Pay Teachers or through her instagram page: @unlearnwithme.theslp
The publication this episode is based on: Dysphagia in Persons with Dementia: The Dual Diagnosis Challenge Author: Michelle Tristani Publication: Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest GroupsVolume 1, Number 15, Pages 105-116https://doi.org/10.1044/persp1.SIG15.1
For comprehensive evidence-based dysphagia education beyond the podcast, head to: https://www.dysphagiabites.com/clinical-swallow-evaluation-course
More from Dysphagia Research Bites
Is it a case of trouble with swallowing or trouble with eating? In this episode, Dr Megan Parsons, medical speech-language pathologist, unpacks a framework that changed how she thinks about swallowing problems. Chantelle and Megan explore why “dysphagia” isn’t always a problem of the swallow itself, and why working out what is driving the difficulty might be the most important clinical question we ask. If you’ve ever documented “dysphagia” without being sure what was driving it, this episode is for you.
Safety, nutrition, enjoyment and the dining experience all need to be part of the conversation when we are talking about texture modified meals in aged care. In this episode of Dysphagia Research Bites, Chantelle sits down with Vanessa Chan to unpack a mixed methods study looking into these very things. They explore the whole journey of a meal, from the kitchen to the dining room, and what speech pathologists can do to influence it.
How many times does your patient swallow in a minute? It sounds like a simple question but the answer might tell you more than you'd expect. In this episode of Dysphagia Research Bites, Chantelle sits down with Dr Sonal Pathak to explore spontaneous swallowing frequency: what it is, how it's measured, and why it could become one of the most practical objective tools in your clinical toolkit, both at the bedside in hospital and out in the community.
What if you could interpret a video fluoroscopy report the way a doctor reads a blood test, with clear reference ranges, and the ability to say with confidence whether a value is within or outside what's expected for a healthy adult? That's exactly what Dr Catriona Steele and her team at the University of Toronto have been working on, and in this episode she walks us through what they've found.
Aspiration and aspiration pneumonia are not the same thing. We know this theoretically. In this episode of Dysphagia Research Bites, Chantelle sits down with Melissa Kane to unpack a 2022 tutorial paper that illustrates the case for looking beyond aspiration itself and toward the individual: their host defences, their medical complexity, their oral health, their lifestyle, when determining the real risk of an adverse event.