3/20/2024· Speech-Language Pathology
By: Megan M. Hamilton, MS, CCC-SLP
Food material found in the airway or trachea in an autopsy gives the impression the patient choked to death and suggests liability on the providers’ part. That may be the case, some deaths simply are by choking and secondary to failure on the part of a caregiver to follow diet orders, feeding tactics, postural recommendations, compensatory strategies and/or other safe swallow recommendations.
1/15/2024· Speech-Language Pathology
Forensic Speech Language Pathologist And Dehydration In The Elderly
By: Megan M. Hamilton, MS, CCC-SLP
This article will address how a forensic speech language pathologist (SLP) can assist in determining if dehydration leading to hypernatremia or hyponatremia in the elderly can be considered a result of unmanaged dysphagia, substandard care, negligence on the part of medical staff or an unavoidable consequence of a medical condition.
10/26/2023· Speech-Language Pathology
Dehydration and Thickened Liquids
By: Megan M. Hamilton, MS, CCC-SLP
As with most medical interventions, thickened liquids have both benefits and weaknesses. Recent research demonstrates that patients consuming thickened liquids consume less than patients consuming thin liquids and are frequently dehydrated. There are several reasons postulated for this decrease in liquid intake...
8/17/2023· Speech-Language Pathology
Common Manifestation Of Death By Choking
By: Megan M. Hamilton, MS, CCC-SLP
It is not uncommon for documentation or discussion to use the term “choking” to describe instances in which food or liquid went “down the wrong pipe” or a significant cough occurred. Those instances are not, in fact, choking in the sense of foreign body airway obstruction that leads to death by asphyxiation.
by Col. W. Patrick Lang
by Shannon Wilkinson
by John B. Durkee, PhD, PE
