CCP Podcast 060: My Critical Care Patient Can't Swallow! Why?

This is a chat about the ICU patient with problems with their swallow or dysphagia,  I had with Martin Brodsky (@MBBrodskyPhD), who is an Assistant Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  He is a clinician, researcher and educator with interests in swallowing and swallowing disorders, head and neck cancer, neurologic communication disorders, and ethics. Jackie McRae (@Daisy_project) also joined us and she is a speech and language therapist and an NIHR research fellow undertaking a PhD to investigate intensive care practice in identifying and managing swallowing problems in cervical spinal cord injury (The Daisy Project).

In this conversation, we discussed martins latest research paper "Recovery from Dysphagia Symptoms after Oral Endotracheal Intubation in Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Survivors" Annals of the American Thoracic Society 2017 as well as exploring the causes of the swallow problems and some of the ways we can help prevent them.

Lots of food for thought and perhaps raises many questions for us to ponder.