About me
I am a certified Speech and Language Pathologist since 2016 and a doctoral student at the division of Speech and Language Pathology, CLINTEC, since December 2021. I am employed at the Medical Unit of Speech and Language Pathology at Karolinska University Hospital where, in parallel with my doctoral studies, I work as a speech and language pathologist. My focus in the clinic is investigation, assessment and intervention of voice disorders and mainly voice and communication in trans people with gender dysphoria.
Research description
My doctoral project “Assessment and Intervention of Severe Voice Disorders” include research on voice disorders because of scar tissue in the vocal folds and voice disorders after thyroid surgery.
Vocal fold (VF) scarring is difficult to treat, and no effective and long-lasting treatment is currently available for patients with chronic, severe dysphonia. Scar resection and injection with Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC), a type of stem cells, that can attenuate inflammation and stimulate the formation of healthy tissue, has shown promising results for improving voice function in a study including 16 patients with VF scarring (Hertegård, Nagubothy, Malmström & LeBlanc, 2020) but further research is needed to evaluate treatment efficacy.
Thyroid surgery is associated with risks to the voice such as vocal cord paralysis due to damage to the Recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN). Previous research has also shown that patients experience voice problems, and that voice function can be extensively impaired after surgery, even though the recurrent laryngeal nerve is intact (Aluffi et al., 2001, Bergström Börlin & Hillgren, 2016). Today, there is a lack of knowledge about the prevalence of voice problems, and a need to further investigate long-term voice outcomes after surgery.
The project has an overall goal to improve voice-related health care for patients by: 1) evaluating the efficacy of vocal cord surgery and injection with Mesenchymal stromal cells in patients with vocal fold scarring and severe dysphonia, and by 2) investigating prevalence of dysphonia and vocal cord paralysis and incidence of long-term voice problems after thyroid surgery and developing and validating a self-assessment questionnaire for the patient group.
Education
Admitted to doctoral studies, Karolinska Institutet 2021
Degree in Speech and Language Pathology, Karolinska Institutet 2016
Academic honours, awards and prizes
Prize for best degree project in the field of “VOICE” 2017, Röstfonden and Patricia Grammings minnesfond.