Learning Objectives

After this course, the audience will:

1. Recognize common causes of hypoxia or respiratory distress.
2. List various methods of oxygen administration and their impact on swallowing.
3. Discuss common cardiopulmonary diagnoses and/or surgical interventions and their possible impact on swallowing function.
4. Identify common cardiopulmonary devices and precautions, along with possible impacts on SLP interventions and patient performance.
5. Describe the impact of tracheostomy and mechanical ventilation on swallowing and the speech pathologist’s role in dysphagia and communication intervention.

Speaker Bio

Laura McGarr, M.S., CCC-SLP, is originally from Birmingham, Alabama and received her Master of Science Degree in Speech-Language Pathology from the University of Montevallo in Montevallo, Alabama in 2018. Laura serves as the Speech Pathology Clinical Specialist for acute, inpatient rehabilitation and outpatient speech pathology at University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Medicine. When caring for patients, she has a special interest in dysphagia intervention for the cardiopulmonary population. She has worked on improving methods to identify and treat patients with possible post-extubation dysphagia in intensive care.  She routinely utilizes fiberoptic endoscopic evaluations of swallowing (FEES) & modified barium swallow studies (MBS) for dysphagia management with a heterogeneous patient population, and trains additional clinicians to do the same.  Laura also utilizes video stroboscopy to evaluate vocal fold mobility and function. She works in close collaboration with respiratory therapy to identify appropriate interventions for tracheostomy patients, with and without mechanical ventilation, including possible use of speaking trach and possible dysphagia intervention.

Disclosures: Financial: None; Non-financial: Employee of UAB Hospital