>> Michelle Tristani: Thank you for joining today for Part II, the management and treatment section of “Deciphering Oral Stasis: Managing the Challenging Combination of Dementia and Dysphagia.” I would like to start by referring you to one of the resources that I spoke about in Part 1, the biography of Pat Summit, who is renowned basketball coach of the Lady Vols at the University of Tennessee. At the front of the book, Pat states, “My memories are not so much made up of information, but rather the episodes and engagements with the people I love. The things I struggle with - times, dates, schedules - are things that you could easily read on a digital watch or calendar, but people and emotions are engraved in me.” That is directly from Pat Summit’s biography, “Sum It Up,” and definitely a great resource along with “Still Alice,” that I mentioned in Part I which is written from the perspective of the patient. These are the only texts that I am aware of that are written from the perspective of the patient. They are very enlightening books.
It is a challenge, as we know, to deal with the combination of dementia and dysphagia. It occurred to me that we really look at cognition and dementia as more of an obtuse or obscure treatment. It is not nearly as concrete as dysphagia. If you have a caseload and you are wondering what you can do to make a difference in your patients with dementia, start off by looking at the swallowing problems that exist in the caseload that you may have or potentially have for persons with dementia. We can make a difference there. If you start off with the more concrete swallowing problem and try to determine how that can make a difference in our dementia population, you are off to a great start at eventually looking at the cognition directly as well. I find that that is an encouraging way to look at the whole caseload when you are overwhelmed. It is easy to get overwhelmed.
