What Every Therapist Needs to Know About Dysphagia

This course will review the swallowing basics through use of dynamic, multi-media lectures and hands-on labs.Labs will explore oral-sensorimotor examinations, case history taking, thickening liquids, food consistency testing, complying with the new IDDSI standards, and more. Participants will dive into challenging ethical and end-of-life topics in small group discussions. Therapists should no longer feel like a novice or too scared to ask your questions during a more advanced course setting or in online forums. Let's answer those questions and provide resources to guide your quest for more training. Our aim is to take you from "not knowing what you do not know," (which in medicine is pretty scary) - to knowing your strengths and weaknesses in the dysphagia knowledge base. We want to provide a framework to help you fill in your training gaps in the future, so that you can provide your best evidencebased patient-centered care possible.

Highlights

• Improve your ability to perform thorough swallowingevaluations; maximize the utility of the clinical bedside swallowing evaluation to develop hypotheses that will guide further testing
• Develop comprehensive evidence-based practice treatment programs, which are compensatory and rehabilitative to improve patient outcomes.
• Utilize the most appropriate instrumental swallowing assessments such as Videofluoroscopy (MBSS) and Videoendoscopy (FEES)
• Aspiration pneumonia prevention and aspiration precautions strategies you can use the next day to reduce risks, while not sacrificing quality of life
• Hands-on labs to thicken liquids and to understand the new food and liquid diet framework from the International Dysphagia Diet Standardization Initiative (IDDSI)
• Become an effective advocate for dysphagia awareness and to obtain the needed services for your patient

Target Audience: Speech-Language Pathologists