Six-month-old Kaden Griffith has been on a feeding tube almost all of his young life.
No one knows exactly why he isn’t able to properly swallow. He was diagnosed with pneumonia when he was born and was hooked up to a feeding tube about three weeks later.
"Some doctors think he didn’t learn how to breathe, suck and swallow properly," said his father, Jason Griffith.
Griffith and his wife, Juryang Griffith, have brought their son to the Medalia Medical Group’s recently opened swallowing clinic near Silver Lake in hopes of finding help for their son.
They walk into a room where three other patients are completing a testing session to see how they are progressing with a function most take for granted — swallowing.
Among them is 76-year-old Milt Lantz of Seattle, who was put on a feeding tube in early August following a stroke.
"I was really concerned about his weight," said his daughter, Gerrie Davis. "He was really weak."
While being treated at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, he heard about the swallowing clinic in Everett. Lantz repeatedly asked his daughter to call about the program, even before it had officially opened Oct. 20.
"He said he had a lot of faith this would work," Davis said. "I talked to geriatric nurses I knew. They said maybe he could sip water, not to have high expectations.
"I wasn’t expecting to see dramatic results."
The therapy includes using a device with electrodes that are attached around the throat. Low doses of electrical current are used to help re-educate the throat’s muscles.
The sensation feels like a tingling, pinching or vibration, but doesn’t hurt or feel like a shock, said Marcy Freed, speech pathologist, who helped pioneer use of the device in treating swallowing problems at Cleveland’s University Hospital.
The therapy has been used to help treat stroke, brain injury, cerebral palsy, Parkinson’s disease and other patients with degenerative and muscle conditions regain their ability to swallow.
"They need to relearn how to eat," Freed said. "The part people don’t understand is as you don’t (swallow), the muscles become progressively weaker."
Aspirating, where food is inhaled into the respiratory tract, is the largest cause of death in stroke patients, she said. "The stronger you get the muscles, the more swallows you get."
After Lantz’s first treatment, he was able to eat a sucker. After not being able to eat or swallow in nearly three months, "he said it was the best sucker he had ever had," Davis said. "The improvement in his spirit was really marvelous."
A few weeks later, he was able to eat cookies. His Thanksgiving dinner included turkey and stuffing and "he’s pretty much just eating everything," Davis said.
He’s scheduled to have his feeding tube removed this week.
Swallowing "is something like breathing, something natural that just occurs," Lantz said. "Then you don’t know how to do it any more. Everything you try goes down the wrong road.
"It’s like a miracle to have it happen again."
On Kaden’s first visit, Freed taped electrodes to his throat. His eyelids fluttered slightly, a sign the electrical stimulation was working.
"Nice swallow! Good boy! I hear those gulps," Freed exclaimed after feeding him tiny amounts of Gatorade from a spoon.
Tests last week at Children’s Hospital &Regional Medical Center in Seattle showed that Kaden still had some swallowing problems and was aspirating tiny amounts of all liquids.
Freed said after seven treatments she is confident about Kaden’s progress and expects he will need three to five more therapy sessions.
"I think he’ll get his swallowing completely back," she said.
Kaden’s mother said her son’s swallowing strength seems to have improved.
"It’s been a long six months," she said of her son’s problems. "I’m really crossing my fingers. I can’t wait to see if it works."
Reporter Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.
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