Joan Ma
@drjoanma.bsky.social
200 followers 220 following 10 posts
Senior Lecturer in Speech and Language Therapy, Queen Margaret University. Interested in the application of ultrasound in swallowing, motor speech disorders and speech prosody.
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drjoanma.bsky.social
Attending many great talks at #ESSD2025 in Athens, and a great opportunity to present our work on using the compartmental tongue theory to reshape how we quantify tongue movement in swallowing.
drjoanma.bsky.social
Thanks to the funding from the Royal Society of Edinburgh, I was able to spend a year focusing on developing the SwallowVision project. Found out more about this project here:

t.co/fPhvrirn0Q
https://rse.org.uk/ultrasound-evaluation-of-swallowing-clinical-feasibility-and-stakeholders-engagement/
t.co
drjoanma.bsky.social
Working with the new tongue tracker provides us with new perspectives on how we can quantify tongue movement in #swallowing and how it can be applied to #dysphagia assessment, management and outcome measures.
awrench.bsky.social
Video corresponding to above glossogram. Red line is midsagittal tongue contour automatically estimated using #DeepLabCut Blue line indicates base of mandible to hyoid and purple line indicates base of mandible to short tendon. In collaboration with @drjoanma.bsky.social
Reposted by Joan Ma
awrench.bsky.social
Glossogram with dark red indicating constriction and blue diagonal (tongue compartment contracted) demonstrating peristaltic transfer of water bolus from oral-pharyngeal. This is easiest to explain as sequential extension of neuromuscular compartments of the tongue.
Reposted by Joan Ma
lisa-everton.bsky.social
👇Paper by @drjoanma.bsky.social et al using Ultrasound to evaluate hyoid function. Differences between continuous and discrete swallows in healthy participants. Very interesting to see this area of development with SLT.
drjoanma.bsky.social
Thank you to Dynamic Earth for having us as part of their career fair. We had a great time engaging with the young learners on the role of speech and language therapists and using ultrasound to visualise their speech and swallowing.
drjoanma.bsky.social
👉Considering a PhD as your next step in your career development?
👉Interested in how ultrasound could be used to enhance SLT clinical practice?
The PhD bursary application is open until 14 March. Get in touch if you are interested.
drjoanma.bsky.social
Calling for SLTs thinking about research! PhD bursary competition with an opportunity to pursue a project on #ultrasound and #speech and language therapy is now open.
qmu.ac.uk/study-here/p...
Get in touch!