Dysphagia (i.e., difficulty swallowing) affects a person’s quality life and can be distressing for both patients and their loved ones. For patients with dysphagia, food or fluids might enter the lungs, which can cause a lung infection. Patients with swallowing difficulty might also be at risk of malnutrition and dehydration.
Expected Clients: Those with neurological diseases (e.g., Parkinson’s, dementia, and stroke) and head and neck cancers
Usual Referral Source: ENTs, Neurologists, Respiratory Doctors
Service Delivery: Clinic sessions, nursing homes (if unable to go to site, may consider developing an SOP for tele-screening), teletherapy (for rehab cases), home therapy
Initial Session Length: 45 minutes
Review Session Length: 30 minutes to 45 minutes
Types of Intervention:
Cost: Similar price to pediatric speech therapy service
Those who stutter may continuously repeat sounds or words, stretch a sound out for a long time or have a hard time getting a word out.
Usual Referral Source: Walk-ins
Service Delivery: In clinic or teletherapy
Initial Session Length: Assessment (1hr)
Review Session Length: Intervention (45 mins to 1 hr)
Cost: Similar price to pediatric speech therapy service
A speech disorder is a motor disorder where a person may not sound clear, may be slurred or may have difficulties producing speech sounds accurately.
Expected Clients: Those with neurological diseases (e.g., Parkinson’s, stroke, brain injury) and head and neck cancers (e.g., tongue cancer)
Usual Referral Source: ENTs, Neurologists
Service Delivery: In clinic, home therapy or teletherapy (preferred for Parkinson’s patients where therapy involves loud speech which is an aerosol generating procedure)
Session length (both assessment and reviews) : 45 minutes to 1 hour
What is done in session?
Cost: Similar price to pediatric speech therapy service
Difficulty understanding others, reading, expressing themselves appropriately, finding the words for speech or writing.
Expected Clients: Those with neurological diseases (e.g., Parkinson’s, stroke, brain injury) or brain injury
Usual Referral Source: Neurologists
Service Delivery: In clinic, home therapy or teletherapy
Session length (both assessment and reviews): 1 hour (at times, the session may be broken into shorter blocks if the client has attention issues)
What is done in session?
Cost: Similar price to pediatric speech therapy service