The Voice and Swallowing Clinic was established in February 2004 as a collaboration between Dr. Robert N. Strominger, an Otolaryngologist in the Ithaca area and the Sir Alexander Ewing Speech and Hearing Clinic at Ithaca College.
Speech pathology graduate clinicians at Ithaca College provide evaluations to patients with voice and swallowing disorders under the supervision of Mary Pitti M.S.CCC-SLP, a speech pathologist and faculty member at Ithaca College.
As a graduate student, this comprehensive diagnostic clinic provides you with the opportunity to work in a medical setting and to interact with physicians. In addition, the clinic exposes you to the use of state-of-the-art technology and the most current evaluation procedures available.
One example of an evaluation procedure you will learn is the Functional Endoscopic Evaluations of Swallowing (FEES). This specialized exam that allows direct assessment of swallowing skills.The use of this exam allows the clinician to try compensatory and therapeutic swallowing strategies and to determine their effectiveness.This valuable information helps to determine the dietary management and in turn decreases the probability of aspiration pneumonia. This exam is non-radioactive and therefore is a great alternative to the modified barium swallow study.