Guideline adherence in speech and language therapy in stroke aftercare. A health insurance claims data analysis.

BACKGROUND: Impairments to comprehension and production of speech (aphasia, dysarthria) and swallowing disorders (dysphagia) are common sequelae of stroke, reducing patients' quality of life and social participation. Treatment oriented on evidence-based guidelines seems likely to improve outcomes. Currently, little is known about guideline adherence in stroke aftercare for the above-mentioned sequelae. This study aims to analyse guideline adherence in the treatment of aphasia, dysarthria and dysphagia after stroke, based on suitable test parameters, and to determine factors that influence the implementation of recommended therapies. METHODS: Six test parameters were defined, based on systematic study of guidelines for the treatment of speech impairments and swallowing disorders (e.g. comprehensive diagnostics, early initiation and continuity). Guideline adherence in treatment was tested using claims data from four statutory health insurance companies. Multivariate logistic and linear regression analyses were performed in order to test the outcomes. RESULTS: 4,486 stroke patients who were diagnosed with specific disorders or received speech therapy were included in the study. The median age was 78 years; the proportion of women was 55.9%. Within the first year after the stroke, 90.3% of patients were diagnosed with speech impairments and swallowing disorders. Overall, 44.1% of patients received outpatient speech and language therapy aftercare. Women were less frequently diagnosed with specific disorders (OR 0.70 [95%CI:0.55/0.88], p = 0.003) and less frequently received longer therapy sessions (OR 0.64 [95%CI:0.43/0.94], p = 0.022). Older age and longer hospitalization duration increased the likelihood of guideline recommendations being implemented and of earlier initiation of stroke aftercare measures. CONCLUSIONS: Our observations indicate deficits in the implementation of guideline recommendations in stroke aftercare. At the same time, they underscore the need for regular monitoring of implementation measures in stroke aftercare to address group-based disparities in care.

Speech and language therapy best practice for patients in prolonged disorders of consciousness: a modified Delphi study.

BACKGROUND: Research regarding speech and language therapy (SLT) for patients in prolonged disorders of consciousness (PDOC) is very limited. The Royal College of Physicians' (RCP) PDOC guideline provides recommendations regarding best practice, but does not give detail about many aspects of assessment and management. As a result, SLTs have little information regarding best practice for this complex patient group. AIMS: To ascertain the degree of consensus amongst expert SLTs regarding SLT best practice for patients in PDOC in order to inform the future development of SLT guidelines. METHODS & PROCEDURES: A two-round modified Delphi technique was used. Participants were recruited from major trauma centres and neurorehabilitation units in England and national SLT clinical excellence networks. To participate, SLTs had to be working on neurosciences, neurosurgery or neurorehabilitation wards that treat adult PDOC patients, or have ≥ 3 years' experience of working with PDOC. The Round 1 questionnaire was developed from the RCP's PDOC guideline and from existing research literature. It included ratings of statements regarding SLT best practice using Likert or temporal scales, with optional written justifications/comments and opportunities for participants to suggest additional statements. The percentage agreement amongst participants was calculated for each Round 1 statement. Written justifications for views were analysed using content analysis. The Round 2 questionnaire contained both quantitative and qualitative feedback from Round 1, allowing participants to reappraise their views. The final degree of consensus was then calculated after completion of both rounds. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: A total of 40 SLTs completed Round 1, with 36 completing Round 2 (90% response rate). Consensus was achieved for 87% (67/77) of statements regarding best practice on a variety of topics including communication, tracheostomy, dysphagia and oral hypersensitivity. The statements represented assessment, management and service delivery components of SLT practice. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: A total of 67 best practice statements were created. The statements provide a useful starting point for the creation of SLT guidelines to support best practice, and also have the potential to be used to advocate for the provision of SLT services for patients in PDOC. Future studies should focus on whether the expert opinion generated here can be borne out in experimental research.

Survey of ENT services in sub-Saharan Africa: little progress between 2009 and 2015.

BACKGROUND: A 2009 survey of ENT, audiology, and speech therapy services and training opportunities in 18 Sub-Saharan African countries reported that the availability of services was extremely poor, the distribution of services was very inequitable, and training opportunities were limited. ​​Objective: We conducted a new survey to determine the current status of ear, nose, and throat (ENT), audiology, and speech therapy services in sub-Saharan Africa. METHOD: This study is a cross-sectional study. A questionnaire was distributed by email to an ad hoc group of ENT surgeons and audiologists in 30 sub-Saharan African countries. Data from the current survey were compared to those of a 2009 survey. The numbers of ENT surgeons, audiologists, and speech therapists/100,000 people were compared to the ratios in the United Kingdom. RESULTS: A total of 22 countries responded to the questionnaire. When data of the 15 countries that responded in both 2009 and 2015 are compared, the number of ENT surgeons had increased by 43%, audiologists had increased by 2.5%, and speech therapists by 30%. When the 23% population growth is taken into account, the numbers of ENT surgeons, audiologists, and speech therapists per 100,000 people had declined in four countries, and there remains a severe shortfall of ENT surgeons, audiologists, and speech therapists when compared to the UK Respondents cited lack of availability of basic equipment as the most frequent limitation in providing ENT services. Other important factors causing limitations in daily practice were: lack of ENT training facilities and audiological rehabilitation, low awareness of the burden of ENT pathology, as well as poor human resources management. CONCLUSIONS: There has been a lack of progress in ENT, audiology, and speech therapy services and training opportunities in sub-Saharan Africa between 2009 and 2015. There is a need to look at increased collaboration with developed countries and non-governmental organisations, establishing new and improving existing training centres in Africa, and task-shifting of some ENT services to primary health workers.

Quantitative assessment of interutterance stability: application to dysarthria.

PURPOSE: Following recent attempts to quantify articulatory impairment in speech, the present study evaluates the usefulness of a novel measure of motor stability to characterize dysarthria. METHOD: The study included 8 speakers with ataxic dysarthria (AD), 16 speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria (HD) as a result of Parkinson's disease, and 24 unimpaired control participants. Each participant performed a series of sentence repetitions under habitual, fast, and slow speaking rate conditions. An algorithm to measure utterance-to-utterance spectro-temporal variation (UUV; Cummins, 2009) was used. Speech rate and intelligibility were also measured. RESULTS: UUV scores were significantly correlated with perceptually based intelligibility scores. There were significant differences in UUV between control speakers and the AD but not the HD groups, presumably because of differences in intelligibility in the samples used and not because of differences in pathology. Habitual speaking rate did not correlate with UUV scores. All speaker groups had greater UUV levels in the slow conditions compared with habitual and fast speaking rates. CONCLUSIONS: UUV results were consistent with those of other variability indices and thus appear to capture motor control issues in a similar way. The results suggest that the UUV could be developed into an easy-to-use clinical tool that could function as a valid and reliable assessment and outcome measure.

Enhancing research capacity across healthcare and higher education sectors: development and evaluation of an integrated model.

BACKGROUND: With current policy in healthcare research, in the United Kingdom and internationally, focused on development of research excellence in individuals and teams, building capacity for implementation and translation of research is paramount among the professionals who use that research in daily practice. The judicious use of research outcomes and evaluation of best evidence and practice in healthcare is integrally linked to the research capacity and capabilities of the workforce. In addition to promoting high quality research, mechanisms for actively enhancing research capacity more generally must be in place to address the complexities that both undermine and facilitate this activity. METHODS: A comprehensive collaborative model for building research capacity in one health professional group, speech and language therapy, was developed in a region within the UK and is presented here. The North East of England and the strong research ethos of this profession in addressing complex interventions offered a fertile context for developing and implementing a model which integrated the healthcare and university sectors. Two key frameworks underpin this model. The first addresses the individual participants' potential trajectory from research consciousness to research participative to research active. The second embeds a model developed for general practitioners into a broader framework of practice-academic partnership and knowledge and skills exchange, and considers external drivers and impacts on practice and patient outcomes as key elements. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The integration of practice and academia has been successful in building a culture of research activity within one healthcare profession in a region in the UK and has resulted, to date, in a series of research related outcomes. Understanding the key components of this partnership and the explicit strategies used has driven the implementation of the model and are discussed here. CONCLUSIONS: A strong, equitable collaboration between clinical and academic partners working towards a common outcome can enhance the use of research within the healthcare workforce and contribute actively to the research process. A set of propositions are specified to facilitate both transferability of this partnership model to other professional groups and clinical teams and evaluation of the model components.

Cost-effectiveness of interventions for children with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN): a review using the Drummond and Jefferson (1996) 'Referee's Checklist'.

BACKGROUND: Although economic evaluation has been widely recognized as a key feature of both health services and educational research, for many years there has been a paucity of such studies relevant to services for children with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN), making the application of economic arguments to the development of services difficult. AIMS: The study has two aims, namely to review systematically the cost-effectiveness literature related to services for children with SLCN and to highlight key issues that need to be included in future economic effectiveness studies. METHODS & PROCEDURES: A comprehensive search of the international literature for the last 30 years was completed and the studies were evaluated against the 'gold standard' criteria developed by Drummond and colleagues in 1996 and 2005. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: Five studies met the review inclusion criteria. All focused on young (2-11 years) children with SLCN and most compared clinic-based and parent-administered interventions. The studies provide variable levels of detail on the key elements needed, but few provided sufficient details of costs to draw comparisons across studies. Only two studies attempted to bring together costs and effectiveness data. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: The studies point to the importance of home-based and indirect intervention and, in many cases, emphasize the parental perspective. There is a need for intervention studies to include a cost dimension based on readily comparable methods of establishing unit costs and for greater use to be made of cost-effectiveness analysis more generally.

A ótica dos usuários sobre a oferta do atendimento fonoaudiológico no Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS) em Salvador / The users' view on the delivery of speech therapy in the Brazilian Unified Health System in Salvador (Bahia, Brazil)

Este artigo tem por objetivo analisar a oferta do atendimento fonoaudiológico do SUS no município de Salvador. Realizamos trinta entrevistas com usuários, em oito serviços de saúde e em turnos diferenciados, e constatamos que a oferta do atendimento de fonoaudiologia, neste município, encontra-se direcionada para pacientes da média e alta-complexidade. Há uma distribuição aleatória e desigual dos atendimentos nos distritos sanitários. Constatamos as múltiplas dificuldades dos usuários no acesso a este cuidado, que podem ser explicadas pela especialização da oferta, pela fragmentação da rede e déficit dos procedimentos fonoaudiológicos, estimado em 131.315 por ano. Em direção à aproximação do conceito de desigualdades justas ou suportáveis e para reverter às iniquidades do acesso à fonoaudiologia, sugerimos a urgência do planejamento deste cuidado nos três níveis de atenção.

This article intends to analyze the supply of speech therapy services by the Brazilian Unified Health System in the city of Salvador. We have made thirty interviews with users at eight healthcare facilities, in differentiated shifts and we verified that the offer of speech therapy, in this city, is directed to medium and high complexity patients. There is a random and unequal distribution of services at sanitary districts. We have also noticed the multiple difficulties faced by users in accessing this treatment, which can be explained by the specialization of the offer, the network fragmentation and the deficit in speech therapy procedures, estimated in 131,315 per year. Therefore, regarding the concept of fair or bearable inequalities, and in order to reverse the inequities in the access to speech therapy, we suggest an urgent planning for this treatment in the three levels of attention.

[The users' view on the delivery of speech therapy in the Brazilian Unified Health System in Salvador (Bahia, Brazil)]. / A ótica dos usuários sobre a oferta do atendimento fonoaudiológico no Sistema Unico de Saúde (SUS) em Salvador.

This article intends to analyze the supply of speech therapy services by the Brazilian Unified Health System in the city of Salvador. We have made thirty interviews with users at eight healthcare facilities, in differentiated shifts and we verified that the offer of speech therapy, in this city, is directed to medium and high complexity patients. There is a random and unequal distribution of services at sanitary districts. We have also noticed the multiple difficulties faced by users in accessing this treatment, which can be explained by the specialization of the offer, the network fragmentation and the deficit in speech therapy procedures, estimated in 131,315 per year. Therefore, regarding the concept of fair or bearable inequalities, and in order to reverse the inequities in the access to speech therapy, we suggest an urgent planning for this treatment in the three levels of attention.

Parental satisfaction with health services provided to children with Down syndrome in north-west England: an ENT perspective.

AIMS: To evaluate parents' satisfaction with medical and allied health services provided to children with Down syndrome in north-west England, comparing ENT and its allied services with other areas of health service provision. METHODS: A questionnaire survey of parents attending a north-west England Down syndrome association conference. Demographic data, departments visited, satisfaction with each service (scored one to five), waiting times for each service (scored one to five), service need (scored one to three) and accessibility (scored one to three) were recorded. RESULTS: Otolaryngology had been used by 50 per cent of children, with a satisfaction of 2.63 (the second worst score). Speech and language therapy was used by 90 per cent of the children, with a satisfaction of 3.26 (the worst score). The service felt to be most needed and also most difficult to access was speech and language therapy. CONCLUSION: Otorhinolaryngology departments should assess how they can improve their service to this population with specific ENT needs. Speech and language services for children with Down syndrome should be expanded.

Stuttering treatment research 1970-2005: I. Systematic review incorporating trial quality assessment of behavioral, cognitive, and related approaches.

PURPOSE: To complete a systematic review, with trial quality assessment, of published research about behavioral, cognitive, and related treatments for developmental stuttering. Goals included the identification of treatment recommendations and research needs based on the available high-quality evidence about stuttering treatment for preschoolers, school-age children, adolescents, and adults. METHOD: Multiple readers reviewed 162 articles published between 1970 and 2005, using a written data extraction instrument developed as a synthesis of existing standards and recommendations. Articles were then assessed using 5 methodological criteria and 4 outcomes criteria, also developed from previously published recommendations. RESULTS: Analyses found 39 articles that met at least 4 of the 5 methodological criteria and were considered to have met a trial quality inclusion criterion for the purposes of this review. Analysis of those articles identified a range of stuttering treatments that met speech-related and/or social, emotional, or cognitive outcomes criteria. CONCLUSIONS: Review of studies that met the trial quality inclusion criterion established for this review suggested that response-contingent principles are the predominant feature of the most powerful treatment procedures for young children who stutter. The most powerful treatments for adults, with respect to both speech outcomes and social, emotional, or cognitive outcomes, appear to combine variants of prolonged speech, self-management, response contingencies, and other infrastructural variables. Other specific clinical recommendations for each age group are provided, as are suggestions for future research.

Outcome assessment in aphasia: a survey.

UNLABELLED: There has been a marked increase in attention to the measurement of "outcomes" after speech-language intervention for adult aphasia. Consumers, speech-language pathologists (SLPs), and funding sources desire evidence of therapy outcomes that improve communication and enhance the quality of life for people with aphasia. While many assessment tools are available to measure outcomes after aphasia therapy, there is little information regarding the use of these tools in everyday practice by SLPs. Therefore, the current investigation was undertaken to identify and describe the practices of SLPs relative to outcome assessment in aphasia. An online survey of outcome assessment practices was distributed. Results revealed that 85% of the 94 respondents reportedly perform outcome assessment. A majority of respondents reported barriers to assessment such as time and funding limitations. Considerable variability existed in the types of assessments and the actual tools reported. The impact of the results on clinical practice is discussed. LEARNING OUTCOMES: As a result of this activity the reader will be able to (1) define outcome assessment in aphasia, (2) describe patterns of outcome assessment in aphasia as reported by survey respondents, and (3) describe a conceptual framework for situating outcome assessment in aphasia.

The therapist's role in comprehensive assessment and OASIS.

Looking for guidelines for using therapists to collect comprehensive assessment data & OASIS? This article presents issues related to the involvement and restrictions of physical therapists, speech-language pathologists, and occupational therapists in comprehensive assessment functions. The scope of practice and roles therapists can assume is outlined and provides references you can use to develop your own policies.

Objective assessment of voice intervention: a clinical audit.

This clinical audit arose from research (Lockhart et al. 1997) which suggested timescales for the care episodes of diagnostically related groups of dysphonic clients, where SLT was directed at targeting the parameters of voice production most requiring change. The objectives of the audit were to examine current practice, compare it with the standards set and with the research findings, address any issues highlighted with regard to service delivery or staff training and to provide information to management on outcomes of care.

Audit in the therapy professions: some constraints on progress.

AIMS: To ascertain views about constraints on the progress of audit experienced by members of four of the therapy professions: physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, and clinical psychology. METHODS: Interviews in six health service sites with a history of audit in these professions. 62 interviews were held with members of the four professions and 60 with other personnel with relevant involvement. Five main themes emerged as the constraints on progress: resources; expertise; relations between groups; organisational structures; and overall planning of audit activities. RESULTS: Concerns about resources focused on lack of time, insufficient finance, and lack of access to appropriate systems of information technology. Insufficient expertise was identified as a major constraint on progress. Guidance on designing instruments for collection of data was the main concern, but help with writing proposals, specifying and keeping to objectives, analysing data, and writing reports was also required. Although sources of guidance were sometimes available, more commonly this was not the case. Several aspects of relations between groups were reported as constraining the progress of audit. These included support and commitment, choice of audit topics, conflicts between staff, willingness to participate and change practice, and concerns about confidentiality. Organisational structures which constrained audit included weak links between heads of professional services and managers of provider units, the inhibiting effect of change, the weakening of professional coherence when therapists were split across directorates, and the ethos of regarding audit findings as business secrets. Lack of an overall plan for audit meant that while some resources were available, others equally necessary for successful completion of projects were not. CONCLUSION: Members of four of the therapy professions identified a wide range of constraints on the progress of audit. If their commitment to audit is to be maintained these constraints require resolution. It is suggested that such expert advice, but also that these are directed towards the particular needs of the four professions. Moreover, a forum is required within which all those with a stake in therapy audit can acknowledge and resolve the different agendas which they may have in the enterprise.

Establishing standard rehabilitation evaluation forms. Arizona Association for Home Care.

Contract therapists work with several agencies, providing the same services to patients. Evaluation forms for these different agencies are many and varied, although the forms ask for the same information. Therapists' time would be better served--and thus so would patients--with the institution of standardized forms.

Guidelines for the delivery of speech-language pathology and audiology services in home care.

Due to changing demographics, consumer preference, and priorities of the total health care delivery system, home care services are increasingly vital to the safety, well-being, and quality of life of many people. Consequently, the number of persons who need home-based speech-language pathology and audiology services is increasing. These guidelines cover the professional service components and related aspects of the home care model. It is ASHA's position that home-based speech-language pathology and audiology services should be conducted by certified (and licensed where applicable) speech-language pathologists and audiologists, or by individuals who meet the educational requirements for certification and are receiving the supervised experience required for certification (Asha, 1981). These guidelines have been formulated to assist the speech-language pathologist and audiologist providing services in the unique environment of the home. The intent of these guidelines is to facilitate integration of services, cost-effectiveness and quality of client care.