Aging population drives need for speech therapy

The aging of the population has triggered the need for speech therapy in the National Health Service, where there are queues, despite the increase in the number of professionals, according to the Portuguese Society of Speech Therapy (SPTF).

“When looking for speech therapy services, there has always been a recurrent problem that the resources that exist within the hospitals are not enough”, said the president of the SPTF, Paula Correia, who was speaking to the Lusa agency about the organization’s 3rd congress, which will take place between Thursday and Saturday, at the Centro Ismaili, in Lisbon.

Paula Correia acknowledged, however, that the SNS, “contrary to what it had done in the last 20 years, in the last two years finally decided to open a set of vacancies and competition for speech therapists”, who have been joining hospitals.

But, despite being better, he said, “there is always a balance that ends up being unbalanced”, since the problem is that Portugal has “an aging population and its care needs have also skyrocketed”.

The speech therapist explained that the elderly population has a “much higher” probability of needing this care than other age groups, due to eating and swallowing difficulties, neurological and language disorders following a stroke and the aging process itself.

On the other hand, there is also “some difficulty” regarding speech therapists who are in “large school groups, with a large referral of children” and who are also unable to respond to all requests.

“Therefore, we always have, whether within hospitals or in a more educational context, a demand that is always greater than the capacity to respond”, he insisted.

Asked whether there is a lack of professionals in this area, Paula Correia said she did not have objective data, but added that every week they receive requests from the SPTF to publicize vacancies for speech therapists.

He recalled that 15 years ago there was a “great proliferation of schools” that trained speech therapists, but with the economic crisis many closed. At this moment, he considered, “the group of trained professionals does not respond to requests”, but “it is still not dramatic”.

About the congress, Paula Correia stated that it aims to revisit the evaluation and intervention methodologies in speech therapy.

“Although speech therapy is already a science that has been around for some years, it has, like all others, a lack of validated methodology for European Portuguese and, therefore, with some gaps in knowledge regarding children, young people and adults who in their therapists assess a wide range of communication and swallowing pathologies, which is why we have focused this congress theme on speech therapy assessment and intervention”, he explained.

The “Compendium on Speech Therapy: evaluating and intervening with evidence” will be launched at the congress, a pioneering work in European Portuguese, which will be “a historic milestone for Speech Therapy, but also a guiding guide for related sciences, such as medicine (pediatrics, gerontology, otorhinolaryngology, dentistry, neurology, among other specialties) and educational areas”.