A Dysphagia Resource for Professionals and People with Difficult Swallowing

Tips for Managing Dysphagia at Home During the Holidays

SwallowStudy.com and Hormel Health Labs 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! These are a great resources for the holidays or for any gathering.

1. Check out this article: Tips for Managing Dysphagia at Home During the Holidays
2. Hormel Health Labs provides recipe ideas too: Click Here
3. IDDSI.org and the National Foundation of Swallowing Disorders presented a webinar December 2, 2021 called: 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.

Dysphagia Outreach Project

Karen met Hillary Cooper, MA, CCC-SLP (co-founder of Dysphagia Research Project) at ASHA2021. That started SwallowStudy.com’s sponsorship of The Dysphagia Research Project.

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 them at this link. Companies can learn more about donating food, drink and equipment supplies here. 

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

Webinar Recording Now Available! More than Oral Care – Let’s Talk Oral Infection Control

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

Reframing Documentation with a Person-Centered Approach

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!

Giving Back to Graduate School Students

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. 

ASHA COVID-19 Updates / Telepractice

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/

JUNE is National Dysphagia Awareness Month

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

United States IDDSI Reference Group (USIRG)

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 creating resources 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.

See our reference group’s chart of resources that we created and add to often:  https://iddsi.org/United-States

Join the excitement! The world has reached a consensus on how to label, describe/define, and test dysphagia diets. It has been truly inspiring being at a meeting with people from around the world (over 30 different countries) who are forming reference groups to launch IDDSI in their countries. IDDSI provides increased safety for people across all ages, in all care settings (home to hospital to rehabilitation center), and across all cultures. 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 only. Check out this video where people recorded “Why I IDDSI!” This was presented at the Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo, 2021.

IDDSI / USIRG booth at ASHA2021!

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!

Podcast with Fox Rehab (5/1/19)

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

Dysphagia Research Society (DRS) annual conference May 2019

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.

Karen attended the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics

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 interdisciplinary networking. 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

A True IDDSI Champion

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 www.IDDSI.org/Resources/ to download your own IDDSI posters, Powerpoints and more.

Free IDDSI Webinars

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/

Hormel Health Labs Health Hero Award

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

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

Online Dysphagia Seminars at Summit Education

Karen provided live one-day seminars on dysphagia for Summit Professional Education in New Jersey, Minnesota, and New York in 2018.

The course is now available online at Summit Professional Education. Course title: What Every Therapist Needs to Know About Dysphagia: Swallowing Screening, Evaluation, & Treatment to Maximize Safety & Quality of Life.

It is at the intermediate level and is a broad-sweep across the field, including: why to be concerned about dysphagia, why and how to advocate for your patients, screening, evaluation, treatment, palliative care/ethical considerations, IDDSI and more. It is designed for SLPs of all experience levels who need to make sure they have the latest evidence-based practices and resources. Karen and Summit encourage OTs and PTs to attend as well for excellent interdisciplinary care. Please notify Summit Education if you have a group interested in a live seminar near you.

Want more courses? Check out:
Medications: Drug-Induced Dysphagia, Complications, and Potential Treatments

3D Printed Pharmaceuticals Summit

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.

American Speech-Language & Hearing Association (ASHA) in Boston, MA

Karen spoke at the 2018 national convention of the American Speech-Language & Hearing Association (ASHA) in Boston, MA. Together with Theresa Richard, MA, CCC-SLP, BCS-S from SwallowYourPride podcast, she spoke about revolutionizing the old concept that the videofluoroscopic swallow study/VFSS (aka, modified barium swallow study) is the only gold standard for dysphagia evaluations.

When an SLP is thoroughly evaluating an individual’s difficulty with swallowing, it cannot be a dichotomy between just the traditional 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. Your evaluation process may include one of these exams, both, none, and/or the myriad of other ways to evaluate the swallow with appropriate referrals to our other colleagues in the field of deglutition (i.e., gastroenterologists, otolaryngologists, etc). To reflect this thinking, Karen coined the new term of a “Platinum Standard of Personalized Medicine.”

This means that you are using a personalized medicine approach for you dysphagia evaluations. Your more precise evaluations will lead to targeting treatment to the individual’s needs. Read more on personalized medicine and precision medicine in Karen’s blog.

Caring For Caregivers Discussion with Researchers & Clinicians

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. ABSSD’s focus this month has been on caring for caregivers. The discussion, recorded on June 18th, 2020, explored research around caregiver burden when a loved one has difficulty swallowing (dysphagia). Listen to a presentation of the research, tips for what clinicians can do to reduce caregiver burden, and a questions and answers session. Thank you Ashwini Namasivayam-MacDonald, PhD, CCC-SLP, SLP(C), Reg. CASLPO; Samantha Shune, PhD, CCC-SLP & Theresa Richard, MA, CCC-SLP, BCS-S for your presentations and contributions!

Go to @BCSSwallowing on Facebook for the recording.

See More Live Events Hosted by the ABSSD PR Committee:

Make sure you also 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 https://www.purdue.edu/i-eatlab/telehealth-recommendations-for-dysphagia-management-during-covid-19/