engleski

ROLE OF SPEECH LANGUAGE PATHOLOGIST IN DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT OF DYSPHAGIA - WHAT IS THE SITUATION IN CROATIA?

The aim was to determine the approximate number of patients with swallowing difficulties sent to fluoroscopy during the period of two years in Croatian general county hospital. We started researching medical diagnostics to determine the difficulties which patients are initially sent for and where they continue the process of diagnosis and rehabilitation. These data are important due to the fact that the speech pathologist in Croatia treat patients with dysphagia when it occurs almost only when it is recognized by the speech pathologist in cases where dysphagia present itself with other conditions and / or diseases. Making swallowing difficulties insufficiently recognized. The paper presents a review of the fluoroscopy findings. It was done 39 fluoroscopy’s. Of the total number of participants there were 21 men and 18 women. Average age in men was 60 and in women 52. Identified 7 patients (5 men and 2 women), according to the findings of radiologists, had changes in terms of the objective difficulties in swallowing process. The most common changes in swallowing have been described as lagging contrast in valleculae (4 patients). None of the patients in whom is confirmed objective difficulties with swal lowing is sent to speech pathologists treatment. The data show our concern of low awareness in the case of swallowing difficulties in our country making us want to change that in terms of future research and general education of population and of all health professionals.

VFS ; dysphagia

nije evidentirano