History

Traditional swallowing treatment had no standard operating procedures or surveys, and only depended on doctors’ and clinicians’ clinical experience. As a result, existing treatment of swallowing function caused problems for patients and was not conducive to advancement of the field.

These problems began to improve with the establishment of a dysphagia evaluation and treatment center.

VFSS was often used for swallowing treatment, but its high radiation dose equaled about 2-4 CT scans, and was not suitable for frequent exams or as a standard tool.

The role and function of other evaluation tools such as FEES, manometry and IOPI are still being explored.

The Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation is making an all-out effort on musculoskeletal ultrasound exam, using EMG to evaluate patients’ swallowing function and provide a quick and effective exam.

But if we never integrate all of the medical resources, patients must go to the Department of Medical Imaging to take the VFSS exam, and go to department of Otolaryngology to take the FEES exam and then go to Rehabilitation to take ultrasound exam to assess swallowing function . Finally, they can receive swallowing treatment at the Speech Therapy department. These cumbersome steps caused patients much inconvenience and medical waste.

In 2016 we innovatively proposed to establish an A1 concept for a dysphagia evaluation and treatment center. We hope through integrating each department’s resources, we can build up the best dysphagia evaluation and treatment center in Asia.

We established the center within 2 years, and after the A1 plan we still continue with related research and medical services. In the meantime, we founded the Taiwan Association for Dysphagia.

President Tyng-Guey Wang leads us to implement various research and exchange activities domestically and internationally, to advance the field of dysphagia treatment.