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A global survey of tracheostomy healthcare provision and patient participation: requirements for improvement

Patients with tracheostomy require comprehensive care which should begin in the preoperative phase and go through immediate postoperative and discharge phases with patient involvement as well. The authors assessed this with a multicentre, cross-sectional survey using a mailing list held...

Everyone has the right to say no

Despite the introduction of the Mental Capacity Act in 2005, healthcare professionals remain uncomfortable with individuals who choose not to follow medical advice - who make informed decisions to decline a treatment or management plans. This paper highlights that speech...

The case of the women and the words: intensive therapy can help many years post stroke

Aphasia, a language impairment impacting on a person’s ability to speak, understand, read and write, is most commonly caused by a stroke. Speech and language therapists are trained to work with people with aphasia, often aiming for restitution and rehabilitation...

Dispelling the myths around stuttering and bilingualism

There are many myths around language development in bilingual children, and an increased risk of stuttering in bilingual children is one of these misperceptions. In research studies, speech and language therapists have identified higher numbers of dysfluencies in speech samples...

Medical Speech-Language Pathology: A Practitioner’s Guide

Medical Speech-Language Pathology: A Practitioner’s Guide is an informative and comprehensive guide to differential diagnosis, assessment and management of communication and swallowing disorders in the medical setting, which includes consideration of adult patients from early diagnosis to end of life....

Feel what you say: a framework to demonstrate the emotional response to aphasia is intertwined with the emotional toll

The authors start this paper by flagging a recent study demonstrating that speech and language therapists in clinical practice rarely have time to focus on emotional issues in relation to aphasia. Yet, people with aphasia describe the close relationship between...

Strengthen your communication: better conversations can reduce the risk of frailty

Our population is ageing and, with this, the incidence of frailty is increasing. Frailty is defined as increased vulnerability to stressors resulting in adverse outcomes. Stressors can include communication and swallowing difficulties, yet these are poorly recognised. Management of communication...

Four lessons: the development of speech and language therapy research for people with dementia care

Dementia has been described as the biggest expanded caseload for speech and language therapists. Everyone with dementia experiences communication difficulties. The late Prof Audrey Holland revolutionised the work of speech-language pathologists in this field through four key lessons. Lesson 1:...