North West Cancer Research is delighted to announce funding for a new project aimed at providing swallow training to those who have had head and neck cancer. Difficulties swallowing food and drink following cancer of the head and neck are common. Swallowing difficulties often arise due to the position of the tumour itself (which may be found in the mouth, tongue, voicebox or throat) and after treatment (surgery, chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy).
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Swallowing difficulties may last a long time and can lead to problems such as: fear of eating; depression; anxiety; weight loss; chest infections; and even death. Unfortunately, exercises designed to improve swallowing do not always work for a lot of people.
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Recently, new training, which aims to change the breathing-swallowing pattern of patients with swallowing difficulties, has been developed in America. It seems to work well and improves swallowing for people with head and neck cancer. However, this training programme requires expensive equipment and a lot of training to work. Our research will develop techniques to train patients without equipment enabling the course to be accessed from home and without the need to attend hospital. The aim of the package is to:
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- develop a training package for speech therapists.
- train speech therapists to use the programme with patients.
- train speech therapists to give the right feedback to patients during training, without the use of expensive equipment.
- Make sure the results are available to all
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The research will be led by Dr Michelle Lawton from the University of Liverpool with input from Professor Joanne Patterson, Professor of Speech and Language Therapy at the University of Liverpool. We look forward to the project getting under-way and to see how the results benefit patients.