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Reasoning and Decision Making in Clinical Swallowing Examination

  • Swallowing Disorders (RE Martin, Section Editor)
  • Published:
Current Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Reports Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose of Review

Dysphagia has significant negative impact on health outcomes and hence evidence-based assessment and management of impaired swallowing is central to quality healthcare.

Recent Findings

Approaches to the Clinical Swallowing Examination (CSE) vary considerably. It has been suggested that the patterns of item use within a CSE are non-random, and are influenced by the clinician’s decision making and reasoning processes relevant to each specific clinical scenario. These observations are in line with current models of diagnostic reasoning in the health professions and may reflect a dual process of analytical and intuitive decision making that allows clinical decisions to be made in situations of high cognitive load, limited resources, and dynamic workloads. As such, it may be the robustness of the clinical decision making process, not necessarily dogmatic adherence to item-based assessment protocols, that ensures quality CSE assessment processes, and ultimately, of the clinical care processes it informs.

Summary

We provide an overview of the relevant literature on the cognitive psychology of human decision making and reasoning, and summarize existing research as it pertains to reasoning and decision making in the CSE. We draw connections between these exciting fields of research and offer our own considerations for future directions in research and scholarship in this area.

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Papers of particular interest, published recently, have been highlighted as: •• Of major importance

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Speech Pathology, College of Nursing and Health Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia

    Sebastian H. Doeltgen & Joanne Murray

  2. Swallowing Neurorehabilitation Research Laboratory, College of Nursing and Health Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia

    Sebastian H. Doeltgen

  3. Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Sue McAllister

  4. School of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

    Elizabeth C. Ward

  5. Centre for Functioning and Health Research, Metro South Health, Brisbane, Australia

    Elizabeth C. Ward

  6. Department of Psychology, Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, PA, 17022, USA

    Jean E. Pretz

Authors
  1. Sebastian H. Doeltgen
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  2. Sue McAllister
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  3. Joanne Murray
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  4. Elizabeth C. Ward
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  5. Jean E. Pretz
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sebastian H. Doeltgen.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

Additional information

This article is part of the Topical Collection on Swallowing Disorders

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Doeltgen, S.H., McAllister, S., Murray, J. et al. Reasoning and Decision Making in Clinical Swallowing Examination. Curr Phys Med Rehabil Rep 6, 171–177 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40141-018-0191-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40141-018-0191-z

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