Therapy for Swallowing Disorders

Speech/language pathologists often evaluate and treat swallowing disorders. Signs of a possible swallowing disorder may be choking and coughing when eating or drinking. A gurgly/wet sounding voice is also a sign of a possible swallowing disorder. Unexplained spikes in temperature or pneumonia also may be a result of problems with swallowing.

One technique used to treat swallowing disorders is a type of electrical stimulation called VitalStim. VitalStim is FDA approved and used to re-educate tongue base and throat muscles for swallowing. This technique can also be used to treat weak muscles of the face which may cause drooling, loss of food or liquid from the mouth, or slurred speech.

Most patients are able to be treated using VitalStim, however, patients with cardiac demand pacemakers,who have severe dementia, or difficulty swallowing due to drug toxicity are not candidates for this type of therapy.