9^th Global Neuroscience Conference

Biography

Karyn Casey is a Speech-Language Pathologist in Johannesburg, South Africa. Her work combines running a multidisciplinary private practice, a teaching appointment at the University of the Witwatersrand, and delivering a range of training workshops for ICU staff, care facilities and fellow rehabilitation professionals. Karyn also works within a community- based brain injury rehabilitation program. She is a presenter at a number of workshops and keynote addresses at local and international conferences on the subject of swallowing disorders. She has also participated in a number of international conferences on neurological rehabilitation and dysphagia, including the annual European Society on Swallowing Disorders and the United Kingdom Swallowing Research Group Meeting held annually in London. Most recently, she presented at the World Congress for Neurological Rehabilitation held in Istanbul in 2014. Karyn is a member of the World Healthy Ageing Congress 2015 Scientific Committee, where she heads the Allied Health and Mutlidisciplinary Portfolio. She is also a leading researcher of the MYSTROKE initiative, which is the national coordinating body to develop and coordinate stroke guidelines for South Africa, on behalf of the South African Stroke Society. Her primary clinical interests are in the areas of adults with a range of neurogenic disorders of speech, language and swallowing. She has a specialist involvement in the rehabilitation of dysphagia, and research interests in the relationship between cognition and dysphagia in dementia, as well as Motor Neuron Disease (MND) and dementia. Karyn is the only advanced VitalStim® Speech-Language Pathologist practitioner in South Africa. Having completed her primary training in the USA in 2008 and her advanced training in 2010, she provides VitalStim® therapy to a number of patients within her private practice. Her fellow colleagues within her practice are also VitalStim® certified. The practice currently treats in excess of 200 patients using VitalStim® every quarter. Karyn serves as a mentor for a number of VitalStim® practitioners in South Africa. Karyn Casey represents the South African Speech-Language and Hearing Association as an advisor on their joint panel with South Africa's major private healthcare provider (Discovery Health). Karyn is also a reviewer for a number of scientific journals. She is currently the President of the South African Neurological Rehabilitation Association and is the President of the Local Organising Committee for the World Congress of Neurological Rehabilitation to be held in Cape Town in 2020.

Research Interest