Date published: 13 March 2024
As part of Nutrition and Hydration Week, National Swallowing Awareness Day takes place on 15 March 2023 which aims to raise awareness of dysphagia.
Dysphagia is a swallowing problem and is found across all our service user groups and people with learning disabilities, dementia, stroke, brain injuries and mental health problems are all at increased risk of developing swallowing problems. To raise awareness of the condition we’ve produced a short animation with our speech and language therapists.
Our Speech and Language Therapists (SALT), work with people with dysphagia (eating, drinking and swallowing difficulties). These difficulties can be due to a number of reasons, such as neurological conditions, head and neck cancer, cardiopulmonary disorders and more.
During Swallowing Awareness Day our Speech and Language Therapists want to highlight some of the feedback Liverpool and South Sefton Adult Speech and Language Therapy have recently received:
- This is a text from a patient’s family member after SALT helped escalate concerns regarding a patient’s swallow and overall health to GP. 'Just wanted to let you know Dad went into hospital yesterday. He has reacted well to interventions. I can’t thank you enough for your care and understanding. Best wishes'
- Whilst patients are on our waiting list, we send them written swallow advice. One patient reported that he found the swallow advice very useful and has noticed an improvement to his swallow already.
- We also received a verbal compliment from a patient on discharge who said 'Thank you for the service you have provided - it has been outstanding from start to finish. We are very grateful for all you have done'