VitalStim Therapy

VitalStim therapy helps children and young adults who need help to chew and swallow. Ranken Jordan’s VitalStim® therapy sends small, electrical impulses to the swallowing muscles in the throat through electrodes attached to the skin. The neuromuscular electrical stimulation contracts and strengthens the swallowing muscles to improve motor control.

VitalStim therapy is safe, effective and non-invasive for children and young adults.

VitalStim Therapy can help children and young adults who live with any of the following conditions.

• Dysphagia
• Spinal cord injury
• Traumatic brain injury
• Stroke injury
• Cerebral palsy
• Muscular dystrophy

It’s also helpful for those with coughing during or after swallowing, or difficulty swallowing, or those with a gurgling, wet-sounding voice.

Dysphagia is a disorder that causes regular difficulty swallowing or moving food and liquids from the mouth to the stomach. This can lead to aspiration pneumonia, choking, chronic malnutrition, severe life-threatening dehydration, increased infection rates, more frequent and longer hospital stays, and even long-term institutional care.

Patients with dysphagia often deal with significant discomfort, reduced quality of life, depression, the risk of choking with every swallow, and the inconvenience of feeding tubes.

Research shows that the use of neuromuscular electrical stimulation such as VitalStim can improve dysphagia and relieves patients of the emotional, physical, and financial burdens of feeding tubes.

The Ranken Jordan VitalStim therapy is an essential component of our speech, feeding and swallowing therapy program, which is specially designed to help children strengthen and train muscle groups responsible for swallowing.

A dysphagia therapist must become VitalStim certified to use the therapy. Ranken Jordan is proud to have certified VitalStim speech-language pathologists and occupational therapists on staff to provide this patented therapy. The certification is awarded only to those with significant experience working with patients living with dysphagia and who demonstrate the necessary skills.

At Ranken Jordan, VitalStim therapy is coupled with traditional speech and occupational therapy techniques. It unites the power of electrical stimulation with the benefits of swallowing exercises. This can accelerate strengthening, restore function and help the brain rewire for better swallowing.

Most of our patients see dramatic improvement after six to 20 sessions. VitalStim therapy helps patients sustain improvement for long-term results.