Welcome to the SAFE Life!
We are excited to announce the SAFE Life by Dysphagia Management Systems LLC! Safe Life was born out of the requests from our customers to provide support for dysphagia issues when they returned to home. With the changes in healthcare over the past several years, we are seeing patients return to home much quicker and with less rehabilitation opportunities than at any time in our past. Dysphagia Management Systems anticipated this need and began researching this unique population and what their needs were going to be. Following the development of unique evaluation tools that assessed the entire 5 Systems of Dysphagia ( muscular, cognitive, neurological, respiratory and gastrointestinal) we found that this population had very specific needs.
Safe Life addresses those needs.
The DMS BE SAFE program is focused on evaluating the entire patient. What this means is that dysphagia is a complex issue that encompasses the five systems that are needed to swallow safely and to keep the food from coming back up in the pharynx. This includes clinical evaluation by our specially trained Speech-Language Pathologists, as well as instrumentation examinations utilizing the fiberoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing or FEES. Focusing on the entire eating and drinking experience, including a special focus on reflux, we determine what the patient’s risks are, and identify ways in which the patient can become safer by changing certain aspects of their experience.
The DMS STAY SAFE program incorporates therapeutic techniques, instruction, caregiver education, and physician referral in order to ascertain how to keep from having additional episodes or issues while healing. Diagnosing the issue is but half of the battle to live a healthier and safer life. The DMS STAY SAFE program is intended to gently move the patient toward that goal.
How would I begin to know if I am having issues caused by dysphagia?
Dysphagia is a multi-faceted diagnosis. Issues with swallowing can affect any of the 5 Systems of Dysphagia. Some examples are as follows:
• The patient whose respiratory system of dysphagia is affected can exhibit coughs, wheezes, increased asthma, pneumonia, bronchitis, lethargy, throat clearing, wet-gurggly speech, and reflux symptoms.
• The patient whose muscular system of dysphagia is affected can exhibit difficulty chewing, a weak swallow, a feeling of food stuck in the throat or the mouth, fatigue during eating, lethargy overall, and an appetite that is diminished.
• The patient whose neurological system of dysphagia is affected can exhibit difficulty chewing due to weakness on one or both sides, diminished feeling in the mouth or throat, dryness in the mouth or throat, weakness on one side of the face or tongue, bilateral weakness, feeling of food stuck in the throat or mouth, diminished taste of food or liquid, and diminished feeling of hot or cold on one or both sides of the throat or mouth.
• The patient whose cognitive system of dysphagia is affected can exhibit confusion, lack of specificity in performing tasks, difficulty managing the spoonful of food as it passes through the mouth and throat, difficulty with making safe choices, increased issues with problem solving, taking medications as prescribed, and keeping on schedule for meals and snacks.
• The patient whose gastrointestinal system of dysphagia is affected can exhibit reflux issues as the food and liquid come back up into the throat. This can result in aspiration into the airway, increased coughs and wheezes, damage to the tissues of the pharynx and larynx, and a myriad of complications caused by the acid making its way into the throat.
