Yashaswini R
University of Mysore, India
Title: Tele-practice for subjective assessment of Dysphagia: An exploratory study
Biography
Biography: Yashaswini R
Abstract
Dysphagia is a common condition in most hospitals in India, and there is a dearth of trained SLPs in the field to attend to the assessment and therapy requirements of the clients (Krishnan & Goswami, 2018). One of the solutions to the disproportionate trained professionals and the demand for services is telepractice for subjective assessment of Dysphagia. Subjective tele-dysphagia assessment carried out for four participants is reported in the study. The participants were housed in a medical setting with physicians and speech-language pathologists as facilitators and quick access to medical professionals and setup for resuscitation in case of emergency. The investigator was located in Mysore, Karnataka state. The investigator assessed the swallow functions with the help of the facilitators at the remote end situated in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh state, which was at a distance of around 1,800 Km from the investigator's location. Both investigator and remote end were equipped with the infrastructure necessary for videoconferencing. Meticulous preparations and planning were pivotal to effectively carrying out the assessment process through telepractice. The present study focussed on challenges involved in assessment and adaptations to overcome those in terms of instructions to the caregiver to make prerequisite arrangements; instructions to the facilitators to carry out the cranial nerve examination, and observation of specific details during swallow of different consistency of food and fluids and online monitoring of these observations by the investigator. The tele-assessment was concluded with information on severity of Dysphagia and recommendations for treatment to participants, caregivers and facilitators.