South of the UES: Improving the ability of speech-language pathologists to detect oesophageal abnormalities during videofluoroscopy swallowing studies

Purpose: With two-thirds of adults presenting for a videofluoroscopy swallow study (VFSS) with oesophageal abnormalities, it seems prudent to include visualisation of the oesophagus, in the context of the entire swallow process, to provide further information to the diagnostic team. This study aims...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of speech language pathology 2024-04, Vol.ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print), p.1-8
Main Authors: Stanley, Claire, Rotman, Anthony, McKenzie, Dean, Malcolm, Louise, Paddle, Paul
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Deglutition
Deglutition Disorders - diagnosis
Esophagus
Humans
inter-rater reliability
Medical personnel
oesophageal sweep
Pathologists
Reproducibility of Results
Speech
Speech therapists
Speech-language pathologists
Swallowing
training
VFSS
Video Recording - methods
Videofluoroscopy
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Summary:Purpose: With two-thirds of adults presenting for a videofluoroscopy swallow study (VFSS) with oesophageal abnormalities, it seems prudent to include visualisation of the oesophagus, in the context of the entire swallow process, to provide further information to the diagnostic team. This study aims to evaluate the ability of speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to interpret oesophageal sweep on VFSS and the relative improvement in that ability with additional training. Method: One hundred SLPs attended training in oesophageal visualisation during VFSS, based on a previous study. Ten oesophageal sweep videos (five normal, five abnormal) with one 20 ml thin fluid barium bolus (19% w/v) were presented at baseline and following training. Raters were blinded to patient information other than age. Binary ratings were collected for oesophageal transit time (OTT), presence of stasis, redirection, and referral to other specialists. Result: Inter-rater reliability as measured by Fleiss' kappa improved for all parameters, reaching statistical significance for OTT (pre-test kappa = 0.34, post-test kappa = 0.73; p 
ISSN:1754-9507
1754-9515
DOI:10.1080/17549507.2023.2225801