Ok, I liked my little saying from last week, so I'm going to begin this week with another...

The happy heart runs with the river, floats on the air, lifts to the music, soars with the eagle, hopes with the prayer.
-Maya Angelou

I think that this has been a type of theme for me this past week. I've have been sorting through a lot of changes in my life and it has been a small struggle. I can't say how many times I looked at that saying this past week. I think that it will probably be my theme for the next several weeks and I'm OK with that.

So much to do! I'm still not caught up on the things that I need to be but I think that I'm still OK on time(as far as when things are due). This week was helpful to me because it began to make me think more about my topic and what kind of research I needed to do. The Library Searching assignment was a lot of help. When I met with Mrs. McComas on Wednesday, I found that my topic was a little broad (and I figured that it was). So then, I was faced with setting down and figuring out exactly how I wanted to break my essential and foundation questions down.

So, without further ado (man, I hope I spelled that right), here we go.....

My original question was: What are some possible causes of dysphagia and how can I help make clients with dysphagia more comfortable?

I thought of this originally because I wanted to know about what happened to the swallowing mechanisms and the different stages of swallowing of someone who is suffering from dysphagia. I'm also interested in the different types of diet modifications that can be made and how the caregivers can be involved to help follow through with these kinds of changes. So, I have set and thought it through and here's what I have come up with....

Essential question: What kind of support from the client and others is necessary for treatment to be successful?

I thought that I could still tie in the different diet modifications, swallowing stages, and how to use the family and care personel in order to follow up with treatment. I think that it is necessary for others around the client to help them stay on track due to the fact that they may want to cheat a little bit, or the family may not realize the full importance of the dietary modifications. With this in mind, I have come up with these foundation questions:

1. What are the different stages of swallowing?
2. What could go wrong during the different stages of swallowing?
3. What are the different types of diet for clients with dysphagia?
4. What are the different techniques that could be used in order to make swallowing easier with or without dietary modifications?
5. What can I do that will better explain the disorder to the family, client and others to help them make the proper adjustments?

I thought that maybe I could make one of my genres a brochure that would sum up all of this information for the people involved with a patient of dysphagia. I thought that I could have a "meeting" with them (I thought that this is where the powerpoint presentation could come in) and "hand out" the brochures. I could then write a journal entry from the clinicians point of view about what happened in the "meeting". I feel like Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers movies (giant "laser" on the moon that I will call my "death star") OK, it was funny to me. If you haven't seen this movie, please do.

Well, this is the thoughts for my week. If anyone has any ideas or revisions, please let me know. Or if this just doesn't make any sense what-so-ever, let me know.

Kara

I was at Hallmark today and I bought the neatest little book. It is called Words and Hopes of Courage from Maya Angelou. I found an awesome quote in there and I would like to share it with everyone:

Courage allows the successful person to fail - and to learn powerful lessons from the failure - so that in the end, it was not a failure at all.

I thought that was true, especially with me. Last week I had a hard time getting my Week 4 Online Journal and my Webliography posted due to thunderstorms and a down phone line. It was my fault that I waited until Sunday to do it, but who would've thought that something like that would happen! It taught me a big lesson to not wait until the last moment to do everything. I know that it sounded like a really bad excuse, just like the famous my dog ate my homework excuse, but it really did happen. Everytime I don't do as well as I expected on a test or an assignment, I always try to learn from my mistakes. I just thought that this quote really matched my past few weeks.

Anyway, back to this weeks assignments in 315, I had a little trouble figuring out what to do on the Project Prospectus. I really hadn't set down and thought about what I was going to do and I'm really not sure how this is going to be laid out. I really enjoyed doing the first evaluating resources assignment. The article about sign language with elephants was actually funny. I thought that it gave me a small break from all of the hard core thinking.

When I set down to do the Project Prospectus assignment, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I decided on an interview, an email exchange, two journals or a journal entry and a brochure (as my other genres). I can't decide which of the two I want to do right now. I don't think I'm still quite sure how the genres are supposed to be written. For example, on the interview, I figured that I would make it be between the clinician, the client and the client's family. Do I make up and write out a whole interview of what I think might be said?

I decided to possibly write two journals on the clinicians point of view. I had also thought about writing a brochure to give to the client's family in order to provide them with information on dysphagia and write a journal entry as the possible seventh genre. I figured that I could make it from the clinician's point of view and use it to bring all of the other genres together. The clinician could write about their feelings on the disorder and how they felt about the client with the disorder. I'm not sure if that's right but it's the first thing that I thought of. I think I may do it that way because I think that it makes sense.

I am so thankful that we are getting a catch up week. I'm writing my week 5 journal on my fourth week assignments. Crazy. This week has been interesting, learning more on how to evaluate a research article and actually thinking more about my particular topic and researching for it. Oh, one more thing that I'm excited about! I finally figured out how to get certain words to highlight on my Webliography. I followed the directions but I just didn't have the addresses together right. I swear, you have to get in every quotation mark or space before it's right and that goes with anything on the internet. Anyway, to be continued. . . Stay tuned for next weeks catastrophe! :-)

Research Question and Foundation Questions:
What are some possible causes of dysphagia and what are some diets and techniques that can be used to make clients feel more comfortable?

What are the steps of a swallowing evaluation and diagnosis?

What are the different types of diet for clients with dysphagia?

What are different techniques that could be used in order to make swallowing easier with or without diet change?

How can I better understand different causes for swallowing disorders?

What can I do that will better explain the disorder to the family and client and help them make the proper adjustments?

Tentative point: I want to provide information about what causes dysphagia and what parts of the swallowing phases could be effected. I know that there are different levels of diet for people with dysphagia. I am also aware of different techniques that someone with dysphagia can use to help make swallowing easier for them, such as a chin tuck. I want to learn more about dysphagia myself and I would like to help educate others on dysphagia.

As far as I am aware right now, the genres that I am going to include in my project are as follows:

webliography
poem – client voice
Powerpoint presentation
Interview – clinician and client voice
email exchange – client’s family voice
two journal entries (or a journal and a brochure) – clinician voice

I’m not sure if this is how this is supposed to go but I guess I can change it if not. I thought that I might use the poem to be the clients feeling and impressions of dysphagia, the interview would be the clinician and the client's point of view, the email exchange would be possible questions that they would ask the clinician (if I use the brochure, then I would let it be what the clinician gave to the family for the to get info. on dysphagia), and the two journal entries would be from the clinician's general thoughts about dysphagia and my projects particular client.

Resources:

Cole-Arvin, Cynthis,Notich, Laura.(Jan 1994). Identifying and Managing Dysphagia. Nursing, p48, 2p Vol 24 Issue 1. Retrieved on September 30, 2002, from EBSCOhost database (Academic Search Elite) on the World Wide Web: http://search.epnet.com.

Tips from other journals.(Sept 1995). Dysphagia and Diet Alterations in Nursing Home Residents. American Family Physician, p187, 1/2p Vol 52 Issue 4. Retrieved on September 30, 2002, from EBSCOhost database (Academic Search Elite) on the World Wide Web: http://search.epnet.com.

Surveys Vital for Fair Reimbursement. (March 2002). ASHA Leader, p1, 2p Vol 7 Issue 5. Retrieved on September 30, 2002, from EBSCOhost database (Academic Search Elite) on the World Wide Web: http://search.epnet.com.

Rader, Tom; Rende, Barbara. (Jan 1998). Swallowing Disorders: What Families Should Know. Guides - Non-classroom Use, p18. Retrieved on September 28, 2002, from EBSCOhost database (ERIC #EC303007) on the World Wide Web: http://search.epnet.com.

Eibling, David E., Carrau, Ricardo L. (Jan 2001). Detection, Evaluation and Management of Aspiration in Rehabilitation Hospitals: Role of the Otolaryngologist. Journal of Otolaryngology, p235, 7p 1 chart, Vol 30, Issue 3. Retrieved on September 30, 2002,from EBSCOhost database (Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection) on the World Wide Web: http://search.epnet.com.