Krisciunas, Sokoloff, Stepas, and Langmore (2012) conducted an internet based survey of 759 speech language pathologist (SLP) to understand the type, timing, intensity, frequency, and effectiveness of treatment for head and neck cancer (HNC) patients who are likely to develop dysphagia due to radiation therapy (RT). Most dysphagia patients receive rehabilitation and compensatory strategies after swallowing is impaired due to strokes, neurological diseases, surgeries, etc. This article seeks an understanding of typical dysphagia therapy for HNC patients who undergo RT. The authors stress the importance of gathering more information about the practices employed to treat dysphagia in HNC patient’s due to radiation therapy ability to lead to unpredictable
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• Differential selection threatens this study because the length of time and the clinical setting that the speech language pathologist work in will affect the type of therapy selected. The study included the differences between the settings and increased exposure to HNC patients in their results.
• Attrition is not a threat in this study because this study is not measuring HNC attendance, but speech language pathologist reports of therapy used to treat dysphagia. Although, from the final 793 surveys completed 34 surveys were excluded due to incomplete survey forms.
• Multiple treatment interference is not a threat in this study because it is a survey that speech language pathologist respond to the therapy techniques they employed working with HNC patients.
• There is no pre-test or posttest sensitizing because speech language pathologist completed one surveys.
• Additive & interaction …show more content…
The type of treatment included swallowing techniques, stretches, compensatory strategies, and no treatment. Patients received dysphagia therapy before, during, and 3 months after RT. The duration varied from 7 days/week to 4 to 6 days/week. The intensities provided were for 10-20 min/day, 30 min/day, to 0-4 therapy strategies.
• The dependent variables analyzed in this study were the clinical settings (academic hospital, home care, private practice) and the number of years the clinicians worked with HNC patients.
• This study discussed multiple dysphagia treatments (compensatory, stretches, swallow, etc.) that the clinicians gave their dyspaghia clients based on proactive and reactive therapy. The clinicians base the amount of treatments used on whether the patient dysphagia therapy during RT or after mild/insignificant or moderate/severe RT. This external validity threat did not affect this study because the clinicians completed the survey about their patients.
• The novelty external validity threat does not apply to this study because the purpose of the study is to discuss usual dysphagia therapy employed by speech language pathologist to improve informal and limited research data for HNC patients.
• There is no pre-test or posttest sensitizing because speech language pathologist completed one
• Differential selection threatens this study because the length of time and the clinical setting that the speech language pathologist work in will affect the type of therapy selected. The study included the differences between the settings and increased exposure to HNC patients in their results.
• Attrition is not a threat in this study because this study is not measuring HNC attendance, but speech language pathologist reports of therapy used to treat dysphagia. Although, from the final 793 surveys completed 34 surveys were excluded due to incomplete survey forms.
• Multiple treatment interference is not a threat in this study because it is a survey that speech language pathologist respond to the therapy techniques they employed working with HNC patients.
• There is no pre-test or posttest sensitizing because speech language pathologist completed one surveys.
• Additive & interaction …show more content…
The type of treatment included swallowing techniques, stretches, compensatory strategies, and no treatment. Patients received dysphagia therapy before, during, and 3 months after RT. The duration varied from 7 days/week to 4 to 6 days/week. The intensities provided were for 10-20 min/day, 30 min/day, to 0-4 therapy strategies.
• The dependent variables analyzed in this study were the clinical settings (academic hospital, home care, private practice) and the number of years the clinicians worked with HNC patients.
• This study discussed multiple dysphagia treatments (compensatory, stretches, swallow, etc.) that the clinicians gave their dyspaghia clients based on proactive and reactive therapy. The clinicians base the amount of treatments used on whether the patient dysphagia therapy during RT or after mild/insignificant or moderate/severe RT. This external validity threat did not affect this study because the clinicians completed the survey about their patients.
• The novelty external validity threat does not apply to this study because the purpose of the study is to discuss usual dysphagia therapy employed by speech language pathologist to improve informal and limited research data for HNC patients.
• There is no pre-test or posttest sensitizing because speech language pathologist completed one