3/28/2026
9:00 AM - 12:00 PM Pacific

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Alexandra Brandimore, Ph.D. CCC/SLP joined the USF Communication Sciences and Disorders department faculty in May 2017. She completed her undergraduate, Master's and doctoral studies at the University of Florida and a post-doctoral fellowship in the Laboratory for Upper Airway Dysfunction at Teachers College, Columbia University. During her post-doctoral work she established and coordinated the Clinical Research Neurorehabilitation Center at Teacher’s College and served as co-investigator and/or study coordinator for various large-scale NIH and MJ Fox funded projects. As an academician, Dr. Brandimore's primary research goals target the development of evaluative techniques and therapeutic paradigms to improve upper airway dysfunction, primarily dysphagia (disordered swallowing) and dystussia (disordered cough), in persons with neurodegenerative diseases (i.e. PD, ALS, PSP, etc). Her clinical work has mainly been in the area of Movement Disorders where she has evaluated and treated the motor speech, voice, AAC, and airway protective needs of hundreds of patients within multi-disciplinary movement disorder and ENT clinic.  Dr. Brandimore has teaching expertise in the areas of: dysphagia, dystussia, motor speech disorders, voice disorders, respiratory physiology, cognitive-motor relationships, neural/myogenic adaptations to exercise and training.

Facilitator: Kim Gully, MS, CCC-SLP, CCM, CBIST
Disclosures: President & ASHA Continuing Education Administrator (CEA) of MSCC, Founder and Leader of New Start Support Group for TBI Survivors

Course description:
Protection of the lower airways involves a continuum of airway protective behaviors with swallowing serving to prevent material from entering the airway and cough serving to forcefully eject aspirate or endogenous material from the airway. The treatment of airway protective disorders has historically focused solely on the management of dysphagia (swallowing dysfunction). However, production of cough is an equally important maneuver for protecting the airway from aspirate material and is often disordered in patients with neurodegenerative diseases.

A successful cough requires the intricate coordination of three phases: an inspiratory phase, a compression phase in which the vocal folds adduct to generate intrathoracic pressure, and an expiratory phase which generates rapid airflow acceleration. Cough can be produced voluntarily, on command, or in reflexively in response to sensory stimuli in and around the airway. This presentation aims to educate on the fundamental differences between the respiratory kinematics, airflow and production of these cough behaviors. It will also provide ways to measure and evaluate reflex and voluntary effectiveness within Speech-Language pathology clinics.

Additionally, our research has demonstrated a cognitive-motivational component to both reflex and voluntary cough production, making it potentially amenable to biofeedback and cueing strategies for the treatment of dystussia (cough dysfunction). Given that many patient populations experience simultaneous decline of swallowing and cough, it is essential to increase the clinical understanding and utility of cough intervention for the improvement of respiratory outcomes.  This presentation will discuss novel and effective techniques to immediately up-regulate reflex and voluntary cough function in healthy adults and in people with neurological conditions. These include treatments such as smTAP, expiratory muscle strength training, inspiratory muscle strength training, etc. 

This presentation will conclude with the identification of appropriate populations who may benefit from targeted dystussia treatment and provide clinical cases to support evidence-based learning application.

Instructional Level:   Intermediate                                                            Target Audience:   Speech language pathologists

Learner objectives

• Describe the mechanisms of airway protection (cough and swallowing) and their shared neural substrates
• Explain the similarities and differences between voluntary and reflex cough
• Identify tools to successfully evaluate cough function within speech-language pathology clinics
• List interventions to improve dystussia across neurological and neurodegenerative populations
• Provide solutions to clinical cases and standards for best practice with cough evaluation and treatment

Time ordered agenda
20 Minutes      Background information on the mechanisms and shared neural substrates of swallowing and cough
20 Minutes      Differences between reflex and voluntary cough
20 Minutes      Research regarding how to evaluate reflex and voluntary cough function
45 Minutes      Research and clinical tools for treatment of dystussia (45 minutes)
60 Minutes      Clinical cases of patients with dystussia and neurological and neurodegenerative disease who received evaluations and treatments
15 minutes     Questions & Answers

In order to receive credit for this course participants must complete the following requirements:  
•    attend entire course
•    Join webinar on time and stay until course concludes
•    partial credit  not allowed
•    complete program evaluation/self assessment
•    must be completed within 7 days of completion of course in for attendance to be reported to ASHA CE Registry
•    certificate of completion will be awarded upon receipt of program evaluation

Special Requests
We encourage participation by all individuals.  If you have a disability or other special requests (visual, hearing, physical, etc.), please indicate your request in the designated section included in registration process. We will do our best to accommodate you, please allow a minimum of 14 days notice to allow us time to process your request.   

Refund Policy
Refund requests must be submitted in writing via email. Requests made more than 10 business days prior to course date will be subject to an administration fee of $15 of the registration fee if an additional cost is associated with the course.  Membership fees will not be refunded if member is not able to attend conferences that are included with annual fee.  Refund requests made less than 10 business days prior to any course that requires an additional fee for the course are subject to a $25 administrative fee.  This is to cover the costs associated with the course that have already been accrued based on preregistration.  No refunds for non-attendance will be issued on the day of, or after, the conference.

Cancellation Policy
If MSCC cancels a course that requires an additional registration fee, all members who have prepaid for the course will be refunded the registration fee in the form of the original payment within 30 business days of the cancellation of the course.   MSCC membership fee will not be refunded.

Satisfaction Guarantee & Complaint Policy
MSCC’s continuing education offerings are designed to help professionals achieve improved performance and results in all areas.  If for any reason you are not satisfied with the content and material presented, we encourage you to file a complaint via the process outlined on our website within 30 days of the completion of the course.  Click Here for Policy

Content Disclosures
The content of this course does not focus exclusively on any specific proprietary product or service. Presenter financial and non-financial disclosures may be found in the Presenter & Disclosures area above.

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3/28/2026

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