Speech Pathologist Kati Hagenbuch is demonstrating the new VitalStim Therapy

to her fellow co-worker at MCH, Lab Tech Jodi Leader.  VitalStim Therapy is used to treat patients who have difficulty swallowing.  Ms. Leader, posing as the patient, is attached to the VitalStim unit via electrodes on her neck, which provides an electrical stimulation.

Mendota Community Hospital Enhances Dysphagia Therapy Program with Addition of VitalStim^® Therapy

Patients Treated with Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation Show

 Increased Swallowing Ability with Sustained Improvement 

Mendota Community Hospital has recently expanded its dysphagia therapy program to include the adjunctive use of VitalStim^®Therapy, a non-invasive neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) therapy modality managed by Empi Recovery Sciences of St. Paul, MN.  Available to clinicians since 2003, VitalStim Therapy has been shown in clinical research to speed a dysphagia patient's recovery when used in tandem with standard dysphagia therapy.  Often this improvement means getting a patient off a feeding tube faster, with significant resulting cost savings to the health care system and an improved quality of life for the patient.

"I am simply delighted that we have VitalStim Therapy available to our patients now," says MCH Speech Therapist Kati Hagenbuch.  "We see so many people with this affliction and now we can offer them an effective and innovative solution in addition to the outstanding care we provide now."

Dysphagia, or difficulty swallowing, is a sorely neglected medical condition which affects 15 million Americans and is generally caused by a neurological disorder or event, such as a stroke, degenerative neurological diseases and head and neck cancer. Without proper management, dysphagia can lead to aspiration, pneumonia, choking, chronic malnutrition, severe life-threatening dehydration, an increased rate of infection, longer hospital stays, long-term institutional care and even death.

VitalStim Therapy is a non-invasive external electrical stimulation therapy that was cleared to market by the FDA in December 2002. A leading brand within the Empi Recovery Sciences line of pain management and rehabilitation products, VitalStim can be administered via a portable, dual-channel electrotherapy system.  The patented systems include specifically designed electrodes for delivery of NMES for the treatment of dysphagia.

A typical patient will receive 12-15, 1-hour VitalStim Therapy sessions.  A recent published study, "Adjunctive Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation for Treatment-Refractory Dysphagia," detailed the measured clinical effect of the VitalStim program on patients with chronic, treatment-refractive dysphagia:

• 80 percent of patients reached the defined primary end-point of clinical improvement in swallowing ability
• All patients in the study significantly increased the range and amount of materials consumed orally, with most of the patients progressing from a restricted, single-consistency diet to a full oral diet;
• The average weight gain for the group over the three-week treatment period was two pounds;
• Patients involved in the study perceived significant improvement in their ability to swallow after treatment;
• No patient experienced any swallowing-related medical complication over the treatment period.

To learn more about the Dysphagia Therapy program at Mendota Community Hospital, please visit www.mendotahospital.org or call Kati Hagenbuch at 815-539-7461 ext. 5725.