“Epidemiology of the adult client accessing the speech and language therapy services from a specialized hospital (2020-2024)”

Abstract

Speech and language therapists, often known as SLTs, are responsible for treating a wide variety of patients who suffer from a variety of communication and swallowing difficulties. In the management of problems that occur as a result of neurological illnesses other medical concerns, their competence is absolutely essential. SLT play an important role to work with the clients and provide supports to them and their caregiver or patients’ family members. This research aims to determine the adult client accessing the Speech and Language Therapy Services from a Specialized Hospital (2020-2024). Under a quantitative study design, cross sectional retroactive descriptive survey was applied considering the purpose and objective in this study. Purposive sampling method was used and sample sizes were 4080. Data was collected from Patient's previous file during the month of June 2020 to June 2024 and was analyzed by using descriptive statistical analysis method. In this study, Problems with speech and language are more prevalent in male adults than in female adults, and the age group that experiences them the most frequently is those between the ages of 46 and 55. The majority of the individuals had a stroke, and the majority of the people had experienced the beginning of illness between 0 and 9 months previously. In excess of 55.2% of the individuals suffered from dysarthria. In addition, aphasia is rather frequent in adults. When compared to other mixed categories of speech and language challenges, dysarthria ē dysphagia are the most prevalent types of speech and language issues. For the purpose of evaluating the impact of speech and language treatment and investigating the diversity in outcomes, the established outcome of the data set can be utilized. Keywords: Speech and Language therapy, Adult, Specialized hospital.