The Swallowing Rehabilitation Research Laboratory (SRRL) was founded in 2003 by Professor Catriona Steele. The SRRL is affiliated with the KITE Research Institute, a research enterprise within the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute (TRI), Canada’s largest rehabilitation hospital. TRI and KITE are both part of the University Health Network (UHN), Canada’s largest academic teaching hospital, affiliated with the University of Toronto. The lab is funded generously by the National Institutes of Health (USA). We also have several industry collaborations.”
Swallowing is a process that is easily ignored by healthy people because it is done automatically without much thought. However, when an accident or disease interferes with this automatic process, the results can be devastating. People with degenerative diseases, head and neck cancer, and stroke survivors are prone to swallowing disorders (also known as dysphagia). Studying the causes of, nature of and treatments for swallowing disorders is the research focus of the lab.
The lab consists of a multidisciplinary group of individuals including speech-language pathologists, PhD students, post-doctoral fellows, clinical engineers and research staff who are interested in exploring the mechanisms underlying swallowing impairment and finding ways to improve clinical practice and treatment outcomes.
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