Shining a Light on Dysphagia Management:

Exercise, Sensors, and Adherence

Recorded Course – 0.8 ASHA CEUS

Presented by: Presented by Gabriela Constantinescu, PhD

It might sound futuristic, but…

As an SLP, you have the power to look back in time to see if your patients actually did their swallowing exercises at home.

You can see if they truly completed those 60 effortful swallows each day, or if they put more effort into avoiding it altogether.

Barring time travel, how is this even possible?

Well, turns out there’s a special place in the world of technology specifically for dysphagia therapy. Sensors, programs, and gadgets exist that can collect swallow exercise data and promote your patients’ adherence to their exercise plan.

This is crucial for progress.

Because if your patients don’t adhere to their dysphagia exercise plan, then they’re less likely to reach their buffet of goals.

And we have the perfect course coming up to show you how to access and add these tools to your dysphagia toolbox…

Join Dr. Gabriela Constantinescu, Ph.D, R.SLP, S-LP(C) as she dives into dysphagia exercises, adherence, and biofeedback technology!

One of the most common frustrations among medical SLPs is the lack of objective data we can use to make informed decisions about our treatment protocols.

You can change that.

After this course, you’ll be able to…

Use technology to advance your practice
Empower patients to stick to their dysphagia therapy program at home
Measure the dose of dysphagia exercises your patients take
Understand how to use biofeedback in your clinic
Know what biofeedback CAN and CAN’T tell us
Go to the literature and put together an evidence-based exercise program

“You and I have access to all these wearable technologies that let us track what we do and give us valuable health metrics and insights. This course will focus on how we can capture information like that for our patients as well.”

~–Dr. Gabi Constantinescu

“As part of my PhD, I sat down with patients and clinicians and asked them what their comfort level with this tech was, and what they would want it to look like. I saw a lot of untapped potential between dysphagia care and technology.”

Dr. Constantinescu, who goes by Gabi, worked for over a decade as an SLP with the head and neck cancer population at the Institute for Reconstructive Sciences and Medicine.

Her unique experience in collaborating with disciplines like anaplastologists, biomedical engineers, and prosthodontists sparked her interest in technology and patient care.

From there she went back to school for her PhD Rehabilitation Medicine, where she focused on biofeedback mobile health systems. This is where her love for dysphagia therapy and technology flourished.

Dr. Constantinescu, who goes by Gabi, worked for over a decade as an SLP with the head and neck cancer population at the Institute for Reconstructive Sciences and Medicine.

Her unique experience in collaborating with disciplines like anaplastologists, biomedical engineers, and prosthodontists sparked her interest in technology and patient care.

From there she went back to school for her PhD Rehabilitation Medicine, where she focused on biofeedback mobile health systems. This is where her love for dysphagia therapy and technology flourished.

Gabi is now a Chief Experience Officer with True Angle Medical Technologies Inc., a tech company that has created Mobili-T, a commercial mobile dysphagia system, and continues to educate clinicians on how this technology can be used.

So… hold on to your scrub pants, because she’s about to blow you away with information like…

Current literature on dysphagia exercises, muscles, and muscle fibers.

Advancements in home health in adjacent fields

Adherence to exercise (the why and how)

sEMG biofeedback

Analyzing biofeedback signals and applying it to dysphagia therapy

Integrating biofeedback technologies to objectively measure adherence

Biofeedback and sensors

There are presentations and discussions out there that introduce biofeedback in research.

But it’s surprisingly difficult (if not impossible) to find an entire course dedicated specifically to what’s out there, how SLPs can use biofeedback technology, and what patients can do with it.

Gabi will cover topics not covered in research papers, like…

How to use this technology properly
How to not abuse this technology
How SLPs and patients can learn from it
How to work with the technology industry
How to ask and advocate for technology at your facility

This course is provided across two four-hour days so you can have time to let your brain marinate in this information.

It’s a lot. It’s important. And it’s game-changing.