SwallowStudy.com is a dysphagia resource for people with swallowing difficulty and professionals. Dysphagia is a medical term for swallowing difficulty. This is when a person has trouble moving liquid, food, saliva, or pills out of the mouth to the throat and esophagus into the stomach.
SwallowStudy.com is the brainchild of Karen Sheffler, a speech-language pathology expert. She also partners with MedBridge to offer patient engagement tools and education on dysphagia. Other services include:
• Dysphagia resources
• Medical expert witness
• Industry and organization support
Dysphagia Resources
This is a central location where people learn more about dysphagia evaluations, swallowing, and dysphagia management. These resources guide the affected persons and their clinicians and caregivers.
Medical Expert Witness
A speech-language pathology medical expert is an individual qualified through study and extensive clinical experience. They draw opinions concerning vocal and speech function, cognitive-linguistic status, choking risk, aspiration risk, airway protection, and swallowing as it affects a situation under litigation.
The expert helps the jury, judge, counsel, and family understand a few things, including diagnosis and treatment standards of care, underlying facts, and field-specific technical matters. They also help summarize the evidence from the depositions and medical records. A dysphagia expert witness can testify by providing expert conclusions and opinions depicted to a reasonable degree of certainty.
Industry and Organization Support
It involves expert opinions on industry products and collaboration with organizations promoting awareness and supporting those with dysphagia, including their caregivers. It also incorporates:
• Peer review and collaboration on product development, research, procedures, and policies
• Company product reviews
• Participation in organization and company advisory councils
• Medical blog writing for organizations and companies
• Raising awareness and public relations
• In-services and webinars for organizations and companies
