Conducting Adult Clinical Swallowing Examinations via Telehealth

Video Runtime: 87 Minutes; Learning Assessment Time: 35 Minutes

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, more clinicians have needed to use telepractice to support the management of dysphagia (swallowing impairment); however, many lack knowledge of the existing evidence for this practice model and are unaware of the ways to deliver this service. This course will present the context and drivers for using telehealth to deliver clinical swallowing examinations (CSEs) and will review the current evidence for this model of care. It will outline the key elements of the model, including the equipment setup and how to prepare the patient and personnel involved. There will also be discussion of the various ways you can use this model to conduct dysphagia assessments of patients within a facility (e.g., testing patients who are in isolation rooms via telehealth), patients located in other facilities (e.g., clients in a smaller hospital where no speech-language pathology services are available), and patients at home. Video demonstrations will be used to help the learner understand how to deliver this model of care. This course is applicable for speech-language pathologists, particularly those who provide adult dysphagia services; any person who may be involved as the support person in a telehealth CSE service; and people in management roles supporting speech-language pathology services.