 | Colleen Karow, left, URI assistant professor of communicative disorders, and URI graduate student Alison Jones examine an X-ray image of a person swallowing. They are viewing the image in Karow’s training lab at the University for dysphagia.
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Karow awarded $70,000 grant to assist patients with swallowing disordersImagine choking every time you tried to eat or drink. This is what happens to many adults suffering from dysphagia—commonly known as swallowing disorders.
To improve the treatment of patients with dysphagia, Colleen Karow, an assistant professor in URI’s Department of Communicative Disorders, was recently awarded a $70,000 grant from the State Department of Mental Health, Retardation and Hospitals (MHRH). With the funding, Karow hopes to improve the quality of life for people suffering from swallowing disorders.
“This grant promotes my objective to enhance the quality of dysphagia services provided by speech pathologists statewide,” said Karow. “By developing partnerships with medical facilities across the state, graduate students can gain experience in real medical settings before graduation.”
The MHRH grant will be used to improve services offered through a relationship between the Department of Communicative Disorders and Slater Hospital. The program provides training for speech pathology graduate students using real life situations like helping patients learn to eat more safely. According to Karow, “The University of Rhode Island is the only institution in the state that offers graduate level coursework and field experiences in the treatment of swallowing disorders.”
The Eleanor Slater Hospital is a 700-bed public hospital operated by the MHRH. It treats patients with acute and long-term medical illnesses as well as patients with psychiatric disorders.
Dysphagia can occur in many kinds of medical situations. Swallowing disorders affect between 50 and 70 percent of patients after severe damage to the nervous system. Additionally, dysphagia is common among victims of stroke and can also be seen in cases of Parkinson’s disease, Lou Gehrig’s disease, muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, and brain injuries. Negative effects of the disorders result in poor nutrition, dehydration, and the risk of food or liquid entering the airway, which can result in pneumonia or chronic lung disease. But help is available.
Speech and language pathologists are licensed professionals who can work with patients with dysphagia to improve nutrition, strength, and overall health.
“It’s sad to see a person who has just had a stroke and has swallowing problems. The patient may be choking on food and feeling that they can no longer eat. As a speech pathologist, I am able to walk into that patient’s room and say, ‘I have some techniques that may be able to help you,’” explained Karow. “One technique uses a powder that thickens liquids to make them easier to swallow.”
Through hands-on work at Slater, Karow hopes graduate students will gain experience that they will use throughout their careers as medical speech pathologists. Some of the supervised services provided by URI grad students at Slater include: teaching patients swallowing techniques to improve food intake, feeding patients who cannot feed themselves, providing therapy to improve muscle function and movement, improving patients’ oral hygiene, and creating an enhanced dining environment for patients who need encouragement to eat.
By Sarah Emmett
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