I am interested to hear the views of researchers and clinicians working in Dysphagia - What does good swallowing function look like? What is our current best outcome measure for this?
"Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity" (WHO definition)
Hi Emmmanuelle
Thank you for your response and for sharing the attached articles. I agree with this holistic view but I also believe that it is important to be able to measure swallow function independently of QOL and/or health status. As the attached articles demonstrate patient perception may not always correlate with physiological/functional swallow measures. Do you have any thoughts on distinguishing function and QOL/health status in assessing swallow function?
Both are seperate but linked, though not in a 1-on-1 relation. QoL: SWAL-QoL (or MDADI, or EORTC HN35), objective swallow assessment: MBSImP by Bonnie-Martin Harris, a standardized tool with very clear operational definitions! Good Luck!
Thank you Jan - I think we are on the same page! However several studies seem to use the terms inter-changeably - this is what prompted my question. QOL tools are often used as study end-points and reported as measures of swallow function. Personally, I think that while it is important to capture the patient perspective, we need to recognise that this does not necessarily reflect swallow function. I share the view that currently, the MBSImp is probably our best measure of swallow function.
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