VitalStIm Therapy

VitalStim Therapy is the first proven treatment for dysphagia.  It’s the only neuro-muscular electrical stimulation device backed by compelling clinical data and cleared by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat dysphagia.

• Based on clinical electrical stimulation
• Proven safe
• Remarkably successful in real-world use
• Better and faster results than any traditional therapy

Non-invasive therapy that uses small electrical currents to stimulate the muscles responsible for swallowing while trained specialists help patients “re-educate” their throat muscles with special exercises.

 How it works:

• Small, carefully calibrated current is delivered by specially designed electrodes, which are placed on the neck.
• Current stimulates motor nerves in the throat while patient practices swallowing exercises.
• Muscles responsible for swallowing contract.
• Quality of the swallowing function improves.
• With repeated therapy, muscles are re-educated.

Patients frequently see dramatic improvement in six to 20 treatment sessions (60 minutes each) – some in as little as three sessions.

Administered by specially trained speech therapists in both inpatient and outpatient settings.

Must be prescribed by a physician.

Effective in patients with a wide range of primary diagnoses, including stroke, head or neck cancer, respiratory conditions and degenerative neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and Multiple Sclerosis.

Midwest HealthStrategies a locally owned and operated physical rehabilitation provider has announced that staff member, Kristi White and speech and language pathologist has completed a certification as a VitalStim Therapy Provider. 

VitalStim Therapy is a new therapeutic intervention – a specialized form of neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) - for use in the treatment of dysphagia (difficulty swallowing).  VitalStim Therapy is a non-invasive external electrical stimulation therapy that re-educates the throat muscles needed for swallowing.  Adult and pediatric patients frequently see dramatic improvement in 6 to 20 daily sessions.  Compared to the cost of managing a patient with feeding tube, VitalStim Therapy represents a significant savings. Kristi has started using VitalStim Therapy on patients of the BMH Physical Rehab Center with the intention to expand the use to acute patients in BMH and eventually to outpatients.