What is Dysphagia?

Karen presented with her acute care colleague, Ana Garrido White, at ASHA in November, 2023 in Boston.

Ana shared from the heart about how she used to really worry about litigation in her dysphagia practice, even when she knew she was practicing within acceptable standards. After talking with Karen about all the ways to practice well and document thoroughly, she now has reduced fear and does not practice defensively or overly conservatively. She and the audience learned that when we practice with a person-centered and evidence-based approach, along with communicating well and documenting details, we don’t have to fear litigation. Karen and Ana turned this experience into a very well received 1 hour presentation for SLPs at ASHA.

Let us know if we can do the same for your organization!

The United States IDDSI Reference Group (USIRG) presented at ASHA in November, 2023 in Boston to provide solutions to overcome any barriers to IDDSI implementation.

Please always refer to our chart of resources: https://iddsi.org/United-States

We update that often. You may find your answers in our videos, handouts, FAQs, and more, but if not:

Go to the USIRG chart –> Email Best Practices group if you have implementation questions

Do you need help managing your or your loved one’s dysphagia at home during the holidays or any time of year? SwallowStudy.com and Hormel Health Labs (HHL) teamed up to provide help and support for those who struggle with difficulty swallowing (dysphagia). We also collaborated with the National Foundation of Swallowing Disorders (NFOSD) and IDDSI!

1. Recent blog with many recipes: It’s Party Time!
2. Check out this HHL article: Tips for Managing Dysphagia at Home During the Holidays
3. IDDSI.org & National Foundation of Swallowing Disorders webinar December 2, 2021: Celebrating the Holidays with Dysphagia. See the full webinar on IDDSI’s YouTube Chanel here.
4. That talk by the dietitian Laura Michaels provided these two terrific handouts:
   1. The Purees of Fall: The Holiday Meal, by Diane Wolff (Author of Essential Puree – The A to Z Guidebook and EssentialPuree.com
   2. Making Holiday Meal Safer for those with Swallowing Difficulties (dysphagia), by Laura Michael of Dysphagia Solutions.

Karen met Hillary Cooper, MA, CCC-SLP (co-founder of Dysphagia Outreach Project) at ASHA2021. That started SwallowStudy.com’s sponsorship of The Dysphagia Outreach Project – with donations in 2021 and 2022. They are an incredible 100% volunteer-run organization that is dedicated to providing assistance to individuals and families with swallowing disorders across the lifespan. You can apply for assistance from their food bank today.

To reach out to become a sponsor, please contact the Dysphagia Outreach Project at this link. Companies can learn more about donating food, drinks, and equipment supplies here. 

To provide a financial donation of any amount to support people who struggle daily with food insecurity in addition to dysphagia, click here. 

The United States IDDSI Reference Group (USIRG) has been hard at work since 2020. IDDSI is the International Dysphagia Diet Standardization Initiative — a global wave to standardize dysphagia diets for the safety of people with dysphagia. I have been blogging about IDDSI since 2014, and now I am actively co-creating resources in our USIRG chart at IDDSI.org to foster the implementation of the IDDSI framework around the world. I am a member of the Resources & Best Practice and the Implementation & Advocacy work groups.

Join the excitement! The world has reached a consensus on how to label, describe/define, and test foods and liquids within dysphagia diets. It has been truly inspiring meeting people from around the world (over 40 different countries) who are forming reference groups to launch IDDSI in their countries. We are all now speaking the same language and can avoid the errors of the past with vague diet labels and descriptions! Don’t take my word for it: Check out this video where people recorded “Why I IDDSI!” (presented at the Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo, 2021).

Karen Sheffler, MS, CCC-SLP, BCS-S & Yvette McCoy, MS, CCC-SLP, BCS-S (on behalf of the American Board of Swallowing and Swallowing Disorders) hosted a live discussion for June’s Dysphagia Awareness Month. AB-SSD’s focused on caring for caregivers. Go to @BCSSwallowing on Facebook for the recording (June 18th, 2020). Listen to Dr. Ashwini Namasivayam-MacDonald, PhD, CCC-SLP, SLP(C), Reg. CASLPO & Dr. Samantha Shune, PhD, CCC-SLP who researched caregiver burden when a loved one has difficulty swallowing (dysphagia). Listen for tips for what clinicians can do to reduce caregiver burden.

Make sure you scroll down on @BCSSwallowing to April 24, 2020 to see the Facebook Live Event with Dr Georgia Malandraki, PhD, CCC-SLP, BCS-S on Telehealth recommendations for dysphagia evaluation and management. See also May 2022 for Dr. Bonnie Martin-Harris’ discussion of the importance of SLPs having their advanced certification as board certified specialists in swallowing. (Find a BCS-S swallowing specialist here).

1. Educators and students have endured extreme challenges during this COVID-19 pandemic. Thank you to Dr. Jamie Fisher, PhD, CCC-SLP, from Western Kentucky University, for inviting me to share tips and resources during her medical speech-language pathology course. Read more and hear from these resilient graduate school students in this blog. 

Karen’s IDDSI Presentations:

1. BeckyDorner.com, providing the following 2 FREE webinars, brought to you by Hormel Health Labs. Learn more about IDDSI by listening to both of the webinars at: https://www.beckydorner.com/hormelhealthlabs/

Webinar 1: The International Dysphagia Diet Standardisation Initiative: The Who, Why, What & How

Webinar 2: Teamwork From Regulatory Requirements to Successful Implementation Webinar

2. NEW 15-20 minute IDDSI Training Modules at Hormel Health Labs:

Sign up for free inservice training series for your staff and get test kits to test foods and liquids IDDSI-style! https://www.hormelhealthlabs.com/resources/for-healthcare-professionals/in-service-training-series-iddsi-testing/

Karen is an IDDSI Champion and has been writing blogs and lecturing about IDDSI to raise awareness since 2014. Karen is pictured here again with Peter Lam, RD, CFE, Co-Chair of IDDSI (Note: Peter’s co-chair is Dr Julie Cichero, BA, BSpThy(Hons), PhD, who is a Speech-Language Pathologist in Australia).

Karen is displaying a colorful IDDSI informational poster. Go to https://iddsi.org/resources to download your own IDDSI posters, Powerpoints and more.

Check out Karen’s IDDSI Blogs, such as 7 IDDSI Updates!

Karen attended the Dysphagia Research Society’s (DRS) annual conference March 6-9, 2019. In spring 2020, she completed her 2 year term on the DRS Website, Communications, and Public Relations Committee, which assisted with fundraising and social media promotion for the event. This global conference drew people to San Diego, CA from 24 different countries. Karen had thousands of people following her 85+ live tweets, helping to connect the global dysphagia community of clinicians and researchers. Karen has also been promoting the International Dysphagia Diet Standardization Initiative (www.IDDSI.org) for years, and she is seen here at the IDDSI booth at the 2019 DRS conference with the IDDSI co-chair, Peter Lam. RD, CFE.

FOXCAST SLP: IDDSI – International Dysphagia Diet Standardization Initiative with Karen Sheffler.

There just had to be an IDDSI booth at our first in-person ASHA convention since the start of the pandemic. I organized this booth along with my fellow USIRG members.

ASHA is the American Speech-Language & Hearing Association, and typically a convention will draw over 15,000 speech-language pathologists. There were over 5,000 in-person and over 5,000 virtual attendees.

ASHA has been a long-time supporter of IDDSI, and we are so grateful that ASHA provided us this booth for free in the exhibit hall! We had a blast sharing IDDSI with students, clinicians, professors, and industry. All left with IDDSI posters, IDDSI Flow Test Cards, IDDSI Food Test Cards, and IDDSI approved 10ml syringes for the IDDSI Flow Test (donated by BD!).

Follow @IDDSI on Instagram to see more photos! Thank you!

June is National Dysphagia Awareness Month in the United States! Check out Karen’s posts on her Twitter and Facebook pages (@SwallowStudySLP). Read more about Dysphagia Awareness Month here.

In 2019, she posted over 70 times to raise awareness during the month of June.

In 2020, follow Karen’s posts @BCSSwallowing on Facebook & Twitter. (Karen is co-chair of the public relations committee for the American Board of Swallowing and Swallowing Disorders/ABSSD). The ABSSD did a “Caring for Caregivers” Series (see infographic gallery here) with infographics honoring caregivers across the lifespan! Additionally, follow hashtags: #DysphagiaAwareness and #Dysphagia across social media every June.

Read more about #dysphagia with this article on RightAtHome.net, written after interviewing Karen Sheffler (in 2019): https://www.rightathome.net/blog/dysphagia-difficulty-swallowing-in-older-adults

Speech-Language Pathologists and related healthcare providers can stay on top of COVID-19 recommendations by the American Speech-Language & Hearing Association’s (ASHA) by visiting the www.ASHA.org website often. This is a quickly changing pandemic and crisis.

Important Resources: 

1. ASHA, SIG13 (Special Interest Group for Swallowing and Swallowing Disorders) posted these SLP Resources on COVID19 & Telepractice (PDF)
2. Stay up-to-date on ASHA.org: https://www.asha.org/About/Coronavirus-Updates/

WEBINAR:  Karen Sheffler and Yvette McCoy are two board certified specialists in swallowing and swallowing disorders who have created this in depth look at how to perform good documentation that is person-centered and targeted to the individual. (November, 2021)

Go to Karen’s homepage on Medbridge Education here learn more: https://www.medbridgeeducation.com/a/karen-sheffler-swallow-study

When you sign up for the course through this link, you will receive a discount on your purchase while supporting our work! Thank you!

Download FREE webinar: https://swallowingdisorderfoundation.com/webinar-oral-care/ on Oral Infection Control.

Karen was the first recipient of the Hormel Health Labs Health Hero Award in May 2019!

Read the full article: Health Hero Advances Dysphagia Research – Hormel Health Labs

Karen presented at the first ever 3D Printed Pharmaceuticals Summit on November 8, 2018 in Livingston, NJ. She was invited to be on a panel titled: 3D Printing of Pharmaceuticals and Biologics to Address Unmet Medical Needs. The conference was sponsored by the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest (CMPI.org) and Aprecia – The 3DP Pharmaceutical Company (Aprecia.com).

Dysphagia is a significant unmet need in traditional drug manufacturing, as people struggle every day to safely swallow their medications. Please see Karen’s blog for more exciting information on how 3D printing will revolutionize what we think of as a finished drug product.

Karen spoke at the 2018 national convention of the American Speech-Language & Hearing Association (ASHA) in Boston, MA with Theresa Richard, MA, CCC-SLP, BCS-S from SwallowYourPride podcast. They advocated to revolutionize the old concept that the videofluoroscopic swallow study/VFSS (aka, modified barium swallow study) is the only gold standard for dysphagia evaluations. It is NOT a dichotomy between the two exams of the VFSS versus the FEES/Fiberoptic Endoscopic Evaluation of Swallowing. You choose the exam that best fits your clinical questions and hypotheses. You choose the exam that is best for the person with dysphagia. Karen coined the new term of a “Platinum Standard of Personalized Medicine for Dysphagia.” This means that you are using a personalized medicine approach for your comprehensive dysphagia evaluations, targeting treatment to the individual’s needs. Read more on personalized medicine and precision medicine in Karen’s blog.

Dysphagia courses now available online at Summit Professional Education.

• What Every Therapist Needs to Know About Dysphagia: Swallowing Screening, Evaluation, & Treatment to Maximize Safety & Quality of Life.

I would have liked to call this: “Are You Ready for Dysphagia?” Are you asking yourself as an SLP: Do I want to do more medical speech pathology with adults with dysphagia? This course is a broad sweep across the field with screening, comprehensive dysphagia evaluation, and targeted treatment, as well as palliative care/ethical considerations. We also cover standardization of dysphagia diets and terminology with IDDSI. It is also excellent for SLPs of all experience levels who need to make sure they have the latest evidence-based practices and resources.

• Medications: Drug-Induced Dysphagia, Complications, and Potential Treatments

Karen attended the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ (AND) Food and Nutrition Conference Expo (#FNCE17) for the first time. This was a great opportunity for collaboration between speech pathologists & registered dietitians, especially in the promotion of IDDSI and increasing patient safety with standardized dysphagia diets. Karen presented at the Hormel booth to raise awareness about the International Dysphagia Diet Standardization Initiative (IDDSI). Karen (middle) is here with Peter Lam, RD, CFE, Co-Chair of IDDSI (on left) and Tim R. Garry, RD, LD, Director of Marketing for Hormel Health Labs / Hormel Food Sales, LLC