Evaluate & Diagnose

Aspiration pneumonia is one of the leading causes of death and the most common complication arising from dysphagia. With the bedside swallow evaluation being 70% inaccurate, speech pathologists cannot efficiently or reliably treat, diagnose, and evaluate swallowing disorders. You CANNOT treat what you CANNOT see– treating dysphagia without an objective test (e.g., FEES or MBS) is equivalent to putting a cast on your leg without getting an X-ray first.

With FEES, we can directly visualize the swallow mechanism and make appropriate recommendations and referrals. Though FEES and MBS are both considered gold standard, objective assessments of swallowing, FEES offers many benefits that MBS may not including the following:

• FEES is convenient and performed at bedside
• No exposure to radiation
• Treating SLP can be present to provide additional information regarding plan of care
• No transportation
• Reduce time of patient out of facility
• Family and friends can be present to foster comfortable environment
• Preferred foods/drinks can be trialed
• More flexibility with length of tests (e.g., during full mealtime if needed)
• Can assess secretions and provide strategies to enhance secretion management
• Biofeedback in real time
• Increased patient buy-in and adherence to recommended diet/strategies/exercises

Because of the above, we can increase a patient’s quality of life and maximize his or her functional performance.