Guests: Maggie Donaker, MS CCC-SLP & Katie Gollin, MS CCC-SLP - To honor Dysphagia Awareness Month, we have linked up with the Dysphagia Outreach Project to speak to some of their amazing leaders and spread their expertise and knowledge as far as possible! We are bringing you this ten-part podcast series and today's focus is neurodegenerative dysphagia. To help us understand these important subjects we are joined by Maggie Donaker and Katie Gollin, who give us some great insight, focusing on three of the main conditions under this umbrella: ALS, Parkinson's disease, and Guillain-Barre syndrome. Maggie is a medical speech-language pathologist, who has been awarded seven ASHA ACE awards! As a young medical speech-language pathologist, Katie currently works full-time in the acute care setting, with experience in inpatient rehab and skilled nursing too. In today's exploration we get some great high level, as well as specific information on these three topics, with our guests introducing each and also sharing some personal experiences and advice on diagnoses, treatments, and education. It is particularly illuminating to hear about how these conditions affect adults, with so much of what we usually do focusing on younger ones! So for a great show, packed with useful information and helpful tips and thoughts, be sure to join us!

Guest: Casey Lewis, MS CCC-SLP, CNT, NTMTC - June is Dysphagia Awareness month, and to honor this time, we have decided to do a ten-part mini-series with the Dysphagia Outreach Project. They have brought together some incredible leaders to share their knowledge in hopes of raising awareness about dysphagia across the life continuum. Casey Lewis, MS, CCC-SLP, CNT, CLC, NTMTC, works in the NICU, in the world of swallowing and swallowing breakdown, which is right where it all starts. In today’s episode, Casey sheds light on the development process of suck, swallow, and breathe, and the work that she does. Importantly, Casey understands that her role is to educate and empower parents, staff, and families so that they can all help the babies in the best way possible. We talk about the steps Casey takes in her interventions, some of the tools she uses, like bottles and pacifiers, and the outcomes she hopes to see. Another vital part of working in a NICU is collaborating with other practitioners, and Casey talks about the hard work she has put in to ensure that her voice is heard and respected. Sometimes, we get caught up in our own bubbles, and we forget that we all simply want the best for our patients. Casey reminds us of just how important it is to reconnect with our why.