Search

Do certain chronic medications increase dysphagia in older people?

Oropharyngeal dysphagia is known to affect a high number of older people in the community, in care homes and in acute geriatric admissions to hospital. The authors of this study have recognised that many older people take drugs for chronic...

Olfactory ensheathing cells and their safe harvest

This interesting and unique paper not only demonstrates that biopsy of olfactory mucosa in the region of the superior turbinate is a safe procedure but also provides valuable insight into an engaging area of research by a world class team...

What can we tell about swallow physiology from a bedside clinical assessment?

Knowledge about swallowing physiology has greatly increased with the use of instrumental assessments such as videofluoroscopy (VFS). The authors of this paper performed an analysis of data obtained from 60 stroke patients who were assessed via a clinical swallow examination...

Chemo-radiation in elderly patients with head and neck cancers

Chemo-radiotherapy is the standard of care for organ preservation in stage three and four oropharyngeal cancer, prospective data on patients over 65 has not been available as they are usually excluded from randomised trials. This paper reviews the experience of...

Full Vs tapered dose of oral prednisolone for sudden sensorineural hearing loss

I was drawn in by the title of this article, in the expectation that it might be a randomised controlled trial, but it was not. Sudden sensorineural hearing loss is an uncommon condition, which has a potentially disastrous outcome, so...

Socially appropriate part II: therapy for people with TBI

Social communication is a complex behaviour comprising social and cognitive communication skills. Providing speech and language therapy (SLT) interventions for people with social communication difficulties following traumatic brain injury (TBI) requires the clinician to understand how ingredients from an evidence-based...

Rationales to explore the neck in penetrating injuries

Penetrating neck injuries in the UK are more commonly associated with low velocity objects such as knives and blades as opposed to gunshots. To explore the neck requires careful consideration of the need to do so in line with Burgess...

The future: brain imaging for aphasia rehabilitation

Technology offers our patients vast potential, yet the research literature in this area is often technical and difficult to translate to the day-to-day clinical setting. This article aims to review structural and functional imaging methods and discuss how they are...

Canal wall down with obliteration of cavity for paediatric cholesteatoma

The authors present evidence that canal wall down (CWD) surgery with primary obliteration is an effective way to treat paediatric cholesteatoma. Fifty-eight ears were operated on and follow-up was for five years on average. Residual cholesteatoma rate was 9.9% with...

Polysolmnography and laryngomalacia severity

Laryngomalacia represents the single most common cause of stridor in infants. Most cases are self-resolving, but a proportion of children will require surgical intervention. This group aimed to analyse the efficacy of polysomnography in determining the severity of laryngomalacia in...