 New Therapy Improves Swallow Function Swallowing. It's like blinking or breathing - you never think about it. You just do it. Thousands of times a day. Unless you're one of 15 million Americans who suffer from dysphagia, a painful, often debilitating disorder that makes swallowing extremely difficult or even impossible. Henry Sroka, a 58 year-old businessman, is one of those people. Due to a neurological condition, Henry's epiglottis, the mechanism that protects the airway during swallowing, wouldn't close properly. Therefore, the simple act of managing his own saliva became a problem. And eating or drinking became life-threatening. "It's a shocker - when you've been swallowing all your life and then they tell you that one of the things you do naturally isn't going to happen," said Henry, who was placed on a feeding tube. "But then you ask the question, 'Ok, what do I have to do to get back to normal?'" VitalStim Therapy For Henry, the answer was VitalStim Therapy, a new innovative treatment used to retrain the throat muscles affected by dysphagia. VitalStim stimulates inactive or atrophied swallowing muscles by passing a small electric current through external electrodes on the neck. With repeated therapy, throat muscles are re-trained, and the patient progresses to an optimum level of swallow function. "Swallowing involves a whole sequence of events. If one thing goes wrong, the whole sequence is affected. Therefore, when an individual tries to eat, food might not go down the right way and the person may aspirate," explained Linda Larson, a Fairlawn speech-language pathologist. "With VitalStim, we're contracting those exterior swallowing muscles to strengthen them in order to facilitate a more efficient swallow. Essentially, we're trying to get those muscles to work again to make the whole swallowing sequence work the way it should."
Following a videofluoroscopic study that confirmed profound dysphagia, Henry began daily VitalStim Therapy at Fairlawn. During the therapy, he also did swallowing exercises and food trials, which provide an opportunity to further strengthen the throat muscles while engaging in a functional activity. After the sixth session, Henry began to notice that he could swallow his saliva, and after the seventh, he successfully swallowed ice chips. But it was the eighth session that brought the most encouragement. "At that session, when Henry was able to drink a quarter teaspoon of gingerale, I broke out into applause, and another clinician came into the treatment area to offer a standing ovation," recalled Linda. "We would not have seen that kind of progress with traditional therapies." In subsequent sessions, Henry successfully swallowed a small piece of graham cracker, and a follow-up videofluoroscopic study showed more movement of his epiglottis. "He was also able to tolerate small amounts of nectar consistency. So he's definitely making progress," said Linda. Recently discharged from Fairlawn’s inpatient Neuro-Rehabilitation Program, Henry will continue VitalStim Therapy at the hospital’s Outpatient Center. Encouraged by the results VitalStim has brought, he is quite clear about his hopes for continued progress. "I'm hoping to return to a normal swallow so I can eat off a plate," he said. But even after months of being unable to swallow, Henry still has limits - "I look forward to eating anything I can - anything except liver."
|
||||||||||||
