A Dysphagia Resource for Professionals and People with Difficult Swallowing

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

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). She posted over 70 times to raise awareness during the month of June. Follow hashtags: #NDAM, #DysphagiaAwareness and #Dysphagia for many informative posts & infographics.

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

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.

Note: The #DRS2020 was cancelled due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Stay tuned for electronic versions of the planned sessions. Also see this news section for ASHA news on COVID-19.

Additionally, 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 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/

One-Day Live Dysphagia Seminars

Karen provides live one-day seminars on dysphagia for Summit Professional Education, and she was 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 taught 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.

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.

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.

Please also see the “Take Action” links on the ASHA website, such as urging Congress to expand Medicare for telepractice so that people with Medicare DO NOT HAVE TO PAY OUT OF POCKET for basic essential healthcare services, such as monitoring the safety of their swallowing: https://www.asha.org/News/2020/Urge-Congress-to-Expand-Medicare-Telehealth-for-Audiologists-and-SLPs/.

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/