This is a comprehensive and readable text on swallowing disorders. The covered topics include the physiology of normal swallowing, aetiologies and mechanisms of abnormal swallowing, as well as assessment and management (including surgical, prosthetic and non-surgical). There is a detailed chapter on swallowing problems in the paediatric population as well.
There are boxed key points to emphasise important areas of knowledge and summary tables throughout the text. Figures throughout the book are in grayscale, but there is a spread of colour photographs corresponding to each chapter located in the centre of the book. Each chapter ends with study questions testing key knowledge and discussion questions to provoke further thought around clinical problems.
The book is accompanied by a workbook and CD. The workbook provides true / false, multiple choice, written and project-based questions with answers. This is a useful way of summarising and consolidating knowledge from each chapter of the book.
The CD provides excellent accompanying resources. These include seven short high-quality video clips of fibreoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing (FEES) in various clinical conditions, along with an explanatory powerpoint presentation; highlighting key features of each video and condition. There is also a comprehensive (655 slide!) powerpoint presentation summarising the entire book, with salient points from each chapter, key tables and figures. Slides could easily be selected from this for a teaching presentation and this is therefore an invaluable educational resource.
This is not just a textbook, but a comprehensive package of knowledge to allow the reader to consolidate and improve his/her understanding of swallowing disorders and teach others from the provided resources.
This well-written, easy-to-read and clinically-focused book is likely to be most useful to speech and language therapists, but would also be invaluable to otolaryngologists wishing to have a thorough understanding of swallowing disorders and their management.
