Diversity is an old, old wooden ship

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Adam

…that was used in the Civil War era.

I’m sad to admit to shamelessly hooking you with a famous line from Anchorman, especially on the heels of yesterday’s announcement that a sequel to the movie is coming out sometime in the future. In fact, this post has nothing to do with Anchorman, except in that like Ron Burgundy, ASHA Watch (AW) apparently has confused the definition of the word diversity.

In AW’s most recent posting they announce something wonderful and inspiring: a $250 diversity scholarship! I’m so excited for the opportunity to see them do something useful for SLPs, audiologists, and graduate students of these professions, especially those from diverse backgrounds. Because, you know, minority groups have most likely faced more hard ships, discrimination and prejudices than your typical straight white dude. Oh wait. What’s that? AW shifted the goal posts? You mean to say that this scholarship won’t advance diverse groups in the SLP and audiology profession? Let’s take a look at the qualifications:

  • -must be a Republican
  • -must be a card carrying member of a conservative organization (i.e. National Rifle Association)

Yep, that’s it. There’s your diversity. A gun toting Republican. Not only is this the antithesis of diversity, but it implies AW thinks that ASHA should officially recognize and represent republicans with guns. Perhaps ASHA’s Office of Multicultural Affairs can look into how we can get more SLPs with gun holsters on their belts into schools and hospitals. ASHA shouldn’t make a special designation for Republicans or members of conservative groups, nor should it represent Democrats and MoveOn.org. ASHA’s sole purpose is to advance the field of speech pathology and audiology as scientifically sound and effective profession and to recruit intelligent people from a diverse-not as AW defines diverse-background. Alas, there’s more though. You can get an additional $25 for each of the following:

  • -being in a heterosexual marriage
  • -being a member of conservative church, synagogue or for being Mormon

Sorry gays. You’re not considered diverse, in fact, you’re over-represented according to AW. Your struggles to be part of society that scorns you is nothing compared to those heterosexuals that have to worry about sharing the rite of marriage with you. Do you know how stressful that is? Put yourself in our shoes! Sorry single parents. Your duties to your job and children preclude you from a financial reward. Your child is probably a bastard, or you should have never let that destructive marriage end in divorce. ASHA has bent their will to you, but no more! AW will make sure that you’re recognized as a less-than. Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Toaists and any other follower of the world’s religions, you’re also over-represented in ASHA. Although you are an itty bitty slice of the demographic that ASHA represents, you paradoxically receive too much much attention and official representation. Not to mention values are inferior to those of the judeo-christian establishment.

To sum up, AW defines diverse candidate for their scholarship as someone who is Republican, an NRA member or other conservative group, in a heterosexual marriage and conservative judeo-christian. Tell me, in what way does this describe minority groups in the US? How does this definition serve multi-cultural people who want to be a speech pathologist or an audiologist? It doesn’t, and holding a scholarship for conservative, straight religious Christians under the veil of diversity is nothing short of insult. At least Burgundy is honest thinking that diversity is a wooden ship.

Posted in ASHA, Speech Pathology | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Acupuncture is 93.3% effective for dysphagia

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Adam

NOT!

Every so often I run across some drivel on acupuncture and it’s application to dysphagia. Acupuncture, if you’re not aware, is the prescientific notion that sticking needles in the skin to correct a person’s qi through channels called meridians will have a curative effect on disease. Nevermind the fact that there is no scientific evidence that qi or meridians even exist, let alone that pricking yourself with needles actually improves anything, except for maybe pain; which even then it performs no better than a placebo (I’m hesitant to even say that).

Most people tend to seek acupuncture to alleviate vague symptoms like soreness, fatigue, depression and pain-symptoms that could be indicative of nearly anything-and that relief often time comes from practitioners that promise wellness and other fluffy, ambiguous terms. What is wellness and how is it different from being healthy? I’m not sure, but I’m sure if you asked an acupuncturist, you would be hard-pressed for an answer grounded in reality.

And so it happens, I ran a across a study with some fancy words to dress up the absurdity that is sure to follow: Clinical Study on the Treatment of Stroke Supranuclear Dysphagia by Acupuncture in the Tongue and Pharynx. Looks like the author(s) were in such a rush to get their unbelievable results out to the public that they couldn’t be bothered to have a grammatically correct study title. The weird thing is that there is no author listed, no citation, no publication journal and you have to pay $48 to get this 180 page study via Pay Pal. The only contact I could find was someone named Jack, PhD. Supervisor. WTF. And the website from which this paper comes from is chock full of this crap and doesn’t resemble any type of organization that values science.

Let’s get back to the title. WTF. Are they sticking needles on peoples’ tongues and in their throat? Cause that what it sounds like and that sounds freaking awful. There’s no way I’m purchasing the article to find out, but at least they provide a lengthy abstract. If you’re in the mood for a splitting headache, give this a read (the bold is my own and I’m not even going to worry about the sics, the sheer amount would further confuse this poppycocked writing):

Objective:To compares difference in curative effect through observe different acupuncture programmes that acupuncture treatment on stroke supranuclear paralysis dysphagia,to select the better acupuncture treatment programme,and preliminarily sum up the acupuncture treatment’s characteristics and advntages above this disease,furtherly improve and optimize treatment’s programmes,promote clinical utilization and provide clinical basis to explore the mechanism of stroke supranuclear paralysis dysphagia treatment by acupuncture.Methods:60 cases were randomly divided into the treatment group and the control group,30 cases in each group.In conventional dialectical stroke treatment foundation,The treatment group selects acupuncture points in the region of the tongue and pharynx:lian quan(he gu acupuncture),both sides of lian quan,(the lian quan next 1 inch,both sides),jin jin(prick blood),yu ye(prick blood).The control group selects acupuncture points in distant places:lian quan,tong li(both sides),zhao hai(both sides),san yin jiao(both sides).Two groups of daily acupuncture 1 time,each week 6 times,2 weeks 1 treatment course,after treats two treatment courses to carry on the curative effect appraisal.Results:Each group of own around comparisons has the remarkable statistics significance (P＜0.05),The treatment group total effectiveness reaches 93.3%,The control group total effectiveness reaches 80%.Two groups comparisons have the remarkable statistics significance (P＜0.05).Conclusion:Both two kinds of acupuncture programmes on treatment stroke supranuclear paralysis dysphagia have the curative effect,The treatment group programme is the better acupuncture treatment programme between two groups.It can more effectively improvement swallows function,safe,less money,without the side effect and be worth of promoting clinical utilization.

Make sure you’ve taken some aspirin by now. Really?! If you’re going to try and be all scientific, at least make sure your sentences are somewhat coherent. The study has six, count em’, six objectives. How extraordinarily difficult is it to design a research study with all the appropriate controls and parameters that can clearly answer one or two questions, let alone six questions? And these questions don’t even make sense (“preliminarily sum up the acupuncture treatment’s characteristics and advntages above this disease”). The methods say they had 60 subjects. Of course theres no description of what the criterion for being in the study was. Was there a standardized dysphagia rating for these subjects (i.e. Dysphagia Outcome Severity Score)? Were they all identified as aspirating on a modified barium swallow or fiber endoscopy? Were they NPO or on modified diets? Who really knows; of course I’m only going off of an abstract, but still, the abstract doesn’t even mention the subjects being dysphagic. 30 of the participants were part of a control group that received what I assume to be typical acupuncture treatment (I admit I don’t even know what that really is) and another 30 participants were part of the experimental group that in fact got needles stuck in their tongue and pharynx. Holy hell, that would hurt. Who would volunteer for this? Who’s internal review board would be ok allowing researchers to do this?

The best part is the results. Did you catch those? They’re in the bold. The needles in the tongue and throat group’s “total effectiveness reaches 93.3%” and the control group’s “reaches 80%.” Wow! Is it time to abandon current treatment methods and replace with acupuncture to the inside of your throat? Heck no. What is the effectiveness? Was there a 93.3% overall reduction in aspiration? Did these people go from an NPO status to a full oral diet? Was the dysphagia self-reportedly improved, and to what degree? Quality of life improvements? And did you see that p-value? Both groups are statistically significant! Oh wait, that’s completely not possible. At all. This study was supposed to measure the effect of the experimental group; how can you derive results that demonstrate a statistically significant control group? You can’t! And there’s that last claim, that sticking needles in your tongue and pharynx is safe. Maybe if you’re this guy:

 

 

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Beer-thirty

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Adam

I’ve been deluged with great beers lately, and with luck some of them will take up some space here. The thing is, is that I love to share good beer with people and if I’m doing that them I’m not likely to take a photo of the beer and geek out by writing a review. Usually, I talk about coarse and inappropriate subjects when I’m with friends and probably The Bachelorette when Ms slowdog is in my company. At any rate, I have this beer sitting in my fridge and it’s dawned on me that I rarely do American beer reviews. Not because I’m some ultra-liberal, flag-hating ass-hat (or am I?), it’s just that I’ve just grown fond of the Belgian tripels, dubbels, geuezes, lambics and krieks. I can’t seem to get enough of them. And when I do deviate, it’s usually to a brewery that attempts to emulate the Belgian styles. Alas, here we are and based on the name alone I’ve chosen Abita Turbodog.

Turbodog is a brown ale and comes with this description:

Turbodog is a dark brown ale brewed with pale, caramel and chocolate malts and Willamett hops. This combination gives Turbodog it’s rich body and color and a sweet chocolate, toffee-like flavor.

Sounds (and looks) tasty, but I’ve been duped by descriptions before, plus I’m not a huge fan of brown ales. It’s not that I don’t like them, it’s just not my go to beer. I hope that it the description lives up to its name.

Turbodog pours a dark brown color, almost black if viewed with no backlight. It has a very thin tan head that lingers for a while. The aroma is deep and rich, lots of dark chocolate and an underpinning charred-like sweetness reminiscent of burnt sugar. There is some toffee in there too. On tasting, coffee flavors come strong and dominates the palate. The sweet nose does not show up in the taste, in fact it has the bitter finish of drinking black coffee. Coupled with the smell, its almost like an alcoholic mocha. There is also some grainy/bready flavors that come out in the end. The mouthfeel is smooth and kind of light, not creamy as the color would make you think, but it matches the flavors well. Overall, it’s a pretty good beer; not my usual style, but definitely a keeper when I’m in the rare mood for a darker, richer brew. I would definitely purchase this as part of a hodgepodge six-pack, but wouldn’t go with a dedicated sixer-only because my beer preferences steer me in different directions, but it’s definitely worth a tasting, especially if you’re into brown ales.

 

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Speech Justice League

Posted on February 18, 2012 by Adam

I have been bestowed a great honor. Ages ago, a conversation among some SLPs in the Twitterverse budded about all things wrong and evil in communication and the lack of united front against such nefarious forces. This realization brought forth the birth of the Speech Justice League to fight against those heinous communication and swallowing disorders. In this wake, the slowdog has been given the covetous SJL blog award. So, in the fashion of the SJL bloggers, the SJL emblem is now affixed to the sidebar of this site.

Also unbeknownst to me until this writing is that I was named as an Executive Director of the league. In this capacity, I assume great power and direction to command my underling #SLPeeps and #SLP2Bs to do my biddings. First order of business: slowdog needs a coffee. Make it a redeye.

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A cavalcade of chaos

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Adam

Coupled with a stupefying look, a crew member was asked “you’re doing that by choice?” I don’t know what answer he returned, but I’m sure the dismay would have made me chuckle on the inside. That pandemonium of preparation last week gave way to a bone-chilling, wind-whipping and Jameson-imbibing peregrination. With an unprecedented group of ten dudes, a cavalcade of chaos emblazoned Sawbill Lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW). From Friday to Sunday we ate, drank, chopped wood, conversed, peed (two dudes even pooped) and slept under Old Man Winter’s frosty breath at a temperature of -35 degrees. Fuck, that was cold. The common question is “why”. I’m no philosopher and I’m not going to provide some lame existential meaning behind our sojourn, but I’ll tell you this. I’d much rather hear the question “can I come?” I like adventure and I love sharing them. And did I mention the man-soup? Because it all starts with man-soup.

My crew of five dudes, including Rumination Dave, arrived in Duluth, MN on Thursday early evening, just in time to catch a glimpse of Lake Superior in the daylight. After cranking out a menu for the weekend (which included four logs of summer sausage) over a beer at Sir Ben’s, we headed back to our hotel for the outdoor, rooftop, heated pool, jokingly referred to as man-soup.

Man-soup!

After a good hour of man-soup and chatting up a couple in town for a birthday, we headed to the Brewhouse for some good food and freshly brewed beers. The Brewhouse serves some delicious ales, and it is a place I used to frequent for a couple years when I lived in Duluth. I was pleased to see their brewing horizons expand, which now included a framboise which they intelligently didn’t ruin by back-sweetening it. It was still only ok; they probably could use some fine-tuning for those delicate brews. Our beers were enjoyed by the music of the ‘brothers,’ a duo whose name escapes me, but the drummer had long hair and wild beard, reminiscent of Animal from Muppets.

Animal and his brother bringing the tunage

Here we met my buddy Greg, who would turn out to be a game-changer for future winter expeditions, and his group of dudes. They quickly had a boot of booze passing between us and it was a good sign that our crews were going to get along. To get back to our hotel, we walked the Lakefront trail; one of my favorites at night as the lift-bridge stands illuminated against the darkness of night. So near the water, I took the opportunity to ritualistically dip my feet in Lake Superior-something I do with every visit to Duluth.

Duluth's iconic liftbridge

Burr...

Friday morning was met by a nagging hangover and a deep regret for eating jalapeños on my burger the night before. I feel responsible for our late departure to our entry point into the BWCAW, which at this point still had yet to be decided and was settled by a game of paper-rock-scissors. Our destination: Sawbill Lake. We met Greg’s group, double checked our gear a drove about 2 hours north to our entry point. Once at Sawbill, we packed our sleds, hooked them to our body, strapped on our snowshoes and made our way 2.5 miles due north on the frozen lake.

A cavalcade of chaos

The wind was at our faces and it stung; immediately I had my balaclava wrapped around my face.  Our goal was to reach the northern most tip of the lake, but as night was approaching we decided to stop short and make a home. We chose a little cove which protected us from the biting wind. First order of business: build a quinzhee-basically a hollowed out mound of snow-for shelter. We also needed to gather wood for a fire, which needed sawing and splitting in order get a proper fire going. It had never dawned on me to do this; years past we had just gathered smaller pieces of wood for a mediocre fire. This method blew mind my mind and will be adopted for future trips.

Our village

Aside from getting firewood and finishing our quinzhees, the night was cheerful as the whiskey began to flow. Greg being the guru he is, used is walkie to tune into the NOAA forecast for the night. -9 degrees and -35 degrees with windchill. With the fire blazing before us and whiskey warming our insides, we had nothing to worry about and simply laughed off the cold weather. The night was clear, the stars shined bright and we were in luck to have been illuminated by the moon. We boiled some water and filled our nalgenes which went into our sleeping bags with us. Fortunately, those in my quinzhee slept well thanks to Reno: his gentle and rhythmic snoring lulled us to sleep.

Fire and ice you come on like a flame, fire and ice then you turn a cold shoulder!

Crappy photo of the moon

Let me give you a tour...

Mornings are slow when the temperatures are sub zero, and Saturday morning was no exception. Indolent, we creeped out of our sleeping bags. The sun was shining bright, but it brought no warmth. We made a breakfast of hot oatmeal and Starbucks Via. I think I eat better when camping than I do at my own house. Another awesome trick I learned is to leave the camping stoves and propane at home. Our fuel was freezing, stoves were not lighting and our frustration grew as we watched Greg started fires and placed a giant pot of water off to the side and brought it to a boil. Almost too easy.

You can't beat this view

Fuel sucks, fire rocks!

Saturday was mostly spend exploring parts of the lake. We headed north on Sawbill. If you’re unfamiliar with the BWCAW, the lakes all vary in size and shape, and none are symmetrical. They all twist and wind, and have little coves, bays, nooks and crannies. The space between lakes are occupied by dense forest, marsh or small creeks that provide endless opportunities to poke around. We had an afternoon lunch of copious summer sausage and cheese and inexplicably the conversation turned to taints, undercarriages, guchees and perineum. We can thank Joe for adding some wisdom to the world: “Life begins when the taint fuses.” Take that Mississippi!

Nearly two logs of summr sausage was consumed at this spot. Conversation was ripe.

Reproductive Biology 101: "Life begins where the taint fuses."

We headed north on Sawbill and made our way to a marshy area and followed a creek to Handle lake. There was a little more topography here and we took the chance putz around some cliffs then decided to turn back towards camp in order to beat sunset. I estimate our hike was around 6-7 miles in all that day.  Back at camp, some decided to warm up, others prepared firewood, some relaxed with some pulls from the bottle, and one determined, but ultimately unsuccessful, soul went ice fishing.

A cavalcade of chaos continued

One brave dude pooping...oh wait, just ice fishing

Happy hour: it's like a blanket on the inside!

The final night was more of the same: a raging fire, whiskey consumption, conversation, bright stars and another good night of rest, save for the fact that Reno’s snoring was louder and increasingly aperiodic. Sleeping is surprisingly warm at night. We all slept inside a fleece liner, inside a 20 degree bag, inside of a 0 degree bag. Two of us had bivy sacs. This sleeping system is so warm I was down to my long johns while temperatures remained subzero.  In fact, several dudes slept under the stars with no shelter to speak of. They all decided to sleep in a row, and seeing them all asleep the next morning is like stumbling onto a bunch of body bags.

Mummy...bag

Us Chicago folks had a long drive ahead of us so we got to an early start, but not without first having some fun with our snowy shelters. We all took opportunities to pose with them before crushing them under our might. Not only was this super fun, but served to prevent others from finding our shelters-which would have been structurally weak at that point-and using them with the risk of a collapse.

Damn good looking group of dudes

Mr Miyagi!

Yoga is for sissies

Ninja Guiden!

Dhalism foot drill!

Just as we were exiting the lake, we saw our first and only other person brave dumb enough to be in the BWCAW-a young lady drilling a hole in the ice for water. Dave and Greg immediately found the love of their life. I only wish the drama between the two would have unfolded then and there, but we have time-lines and their dreams were soon crushed.

All said and done, camping in -35 degree is nowhere near as cold as it sounds as long as you’re prepared with the proper clothing and know-how to stay warm (Jameson anybody?). I learned a few lessons for cooking: trade in the stove and fuel for fire; and a lesson for fires: bring a bow saw and an ax-fires will be much more gratifying. I’m already looking forward to next year’s trip!

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