Jeannie Gaffigan, comedy writer, mother of five, and wife of comedian, Jim Gaffigan, underwent surgery in April 2017 to remove a life-threatening tumor near her brain stem. Damage to her vagal nerve resulted in dysphagia. Jeannie initially required a feeding tube due to the inability to swallow and is currently undergoing swallow rehabilitation.
continue reading →Dysphagia in the News: 33% of Aging Americans will Develop Dysphagia
Research out of Johns Hopkins University suggests that at least 1 in 3 adults in the US will develop difficulty swallowing as they age. A startling statistic coming from their report states that 25% of aging adults diagnosed with dysphagia will die within one month of receiving their diagnosis, and 50% dying within a year.
Dysphagia can result in serious medical complications including choking, pneumonia, malnutrition, dehydration, weight loss, all of which can lead to death.
It is critical that dysphagia clinicians and researchers continue to improve the prevention and treatment of this disorder.
At the NFOSD, our mission is to advance the treatment of swallowing disorders in our lifetime, and one of the first steps needed to do so is to increase awareness of the prevalence and negative outcomes of dysphagia.
Click Here to read the article from Daily Mail
Quality of Life Improved by Swallowing Exercises in HNC Patients
According to Targeted Oncology, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham Women’s Hospital are studying the effects of the performance of swallowing exercises during and after radiation treatment in patients with head and neck cancer on quality of life and swallowing outcomes.
Read the Full Article: http://www.targetedonc.com/news/swallowing-exercises-can-improve-qol-for-head-and-neck-cancer-patients-study-shows
Dysphagia as a Geriatric Syndrome
Oropharyngeal dysphagia has long been known to cause malnutrition, dehydration, respiratory infections, aspiration pneumonia, and increased readmissions, institutionalization, and morbimortality. Dysphagia is increasing in prevalence in our aging population, but despite this increase, dysphagia remains under-recognized and under-diagnosed in many medical centers.
The Dysphagia Working Group, a committee of members from the European Society for Swallowing Disorders and the European Union Geriatric Medicine Society, and three invited experts, is calling for increased recognition and treatment of oropharyngeal dysphagia, which they have deemed as a “geriatric syndrome,” as it is highly prevalent among older people, is caused by multiple factors, is associated with several comorbidities and poor prognosis, and requires a multidimensional treatment approach.
The link below will direct readers to the Dysphagia Working Group’s position paper, which consists of 12 sections that cover all aspects of oropharyngeal dysphagia related to geriatric medicine: diagnosis, prevalence, physiopathology, complications, management, treatment, and legal and ethical issues.
Link: http://bit.ly/2eadqag
In Memory of Steven Leder, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, Professor, Otolaryngology, Yale
I first met Steve in March 2013 in Seattle at the annual Dysphagia Research Society (DRS) meeting. I had recently been elected President of the National Foundation of Swallowing Disorders. Over the next few years we emailed back and forth a few times. What jumped out at me was his energy, passion, enthusiasm, advocacy, and champion of all things dysphagia. I admit, I was a bit in awe of him… past President of DRS, Yale, respected clinician and researcher, and the commander of his own life. We didn’t spend much time together, but speaking for myself and others in the foundation, he will be missed.
— Ed Steger continue reading →