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Rehabilitation Practice and Science

Translated Title

氣切病人接受語言治療現況之初探

Abstract

Objectives: Many patients with tracheostomy have significant communication and swallowing difficulties, impairing their quality of life. They also have eating problems because they cannot eat by mouth, and require tube-feeding to receive adequate nutrition. Furthermore, most conscious tracheostomy patients need to communicate with body language because they have difficulties in verbal communication. The patients' treatment rate in speech therapy is not high, and the medical staff in different medical branches have varying degrees of awareness. Few studies exist in Taiwan on the needs of tracheostomy patients to treat the problems of their communication and swallowing. Methods: We conducted a survey to understand the status of tracheostomy patients who were receiving speech therapy. We used copies of questionnaire to survey 50 hospitalized patients and 80 medical staff at a medical center in Taipei. Results: The results of this study showed that over 90% of patients felt the use of tracheostomy tube impairing their swallowing and communication skills, that more than 70% of patients would like to receive speech therapy, but that only 16% of tracheostomy patients actually received speech therapy. We also found that tracheostomy patients with family support had a higher acceptance for speech therapy as well as that the gap between supply and demand affected the patients on life satisfaction and increased the family and social costs. In addition, the medical staff who had taken care more tracheostomy patients did not have higher referral rate for their patients to get speech therapy. Medical staff had been aware of communication and swallowing being impacted by tracheostomy, but only 33.8% of them referred their tracheostomy patients to receive speech therapy, that 45% of them understood communication and swallowing therapy was given by trained speech therapists, and that most of them did not have a clear understanding of patients' referral processes and methods. Conclusion: Although tracheostomy patients have impaired communication and swallowing, but they rarely receive treatment. Speech-language pathologists and multidisciplinary team can provide patients with related information and knowledge. Speech-language pathologists should put more effort to enhance medical staff's knowledge of speech therapy, to improve tracheostomy patients’ communication and swallowing abilities, and to improve quality of life of both patients and care givers.

Language

Traditional Chinese

First Page

99

Last Page

110

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