It is known that many health professions are dominated by females, particularly the allied health professions, such as speech and language therapy. This is more pronounced in the US than in the UK, Australia and other countries. The authors of...
The authors of this article highlight that the number of older people has increased significantly in the last two decades, and the number of people over 85 has doubled in Australia since 1996. They attribute this to improved lifestyle factors...
Motor imagery is defined as the process of voluntarily generating a mental image of a motor function without actually doing said function. Mental practice (MP) is the process of doing this repeatedly; practising it. There is some evidence that this...
Increasingly, speech and language therapists are being involved in end-of-life and palliative care. This study reports on a three-phase project to explore this in the context of the Australian healthcare system. In phase one, the authors described a scoping review...
Swallowing difficulties are a common comorbidity in just over a quarter of people living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Given the associated risks of aspiration and exacerbation of COPD symptoms, speech and language therapists (SLTs) can offer valuable guidance...
The authors start this paper by flagging a recent study demonstrating that speech and language therapists in clinical practice rarely have time to focus on emotional issues in relation to aphasia. Yet, people with aphasia describe the close relationship between...
Our population is ageing and, with this, the incidence of frailty is increasing. Frailty is defined as increased vulnerability to stressors resulting in adverse outcomes. Stressors can include communication and swallowing difficulties, yet these are poorly recognised. Management of communication...
Dementia has been described as the biggest expanded caseload for speech and language therapists. Everyone with dementia experiences communication difficulties. The late Prof Audrey Holland revolutionised the work of speech-language pathologists in this field through four key lessons. Lesson 1:...
Voice is a key aspect of gender transition for many gender diverse individuals. Transfeminine people are offered hormone therapies, such as oestrogen to support their transition, however these do not impact laryngeal anatomy. This means that specific voice interventions are...
The creator of ENT Expert Opinion, Dr Niall Jefferson, was in the midst of his surgical training in Ear, Nose and Throat Surgery in Australia in 2012. In contemplating his upcoming Fellowship exams, he began to seek out resources that...
Congenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV) infection is a common congenital infection and is the leading infectious cause of sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) in children. Prof Karen Fowler discusses current research and the exciting future of screening for cCMV in newborns. Figure 1....
Here, Jonathan Parsons tells us more about his journey from clinical audiologist to setting up a social enterprise in the National Health Service. My route to Exeter and to a social enterprise has had several twists and turns and not...