Comprehensive Training for Jaw Rehabilitation
Advancing your trismus therapy to skilled and individualized. Are you providing the safest & highest level of evidence based practice in your trismus evaluation & intervention?
Explore Our Programs & Research
Access comprehensive training materials, research articles, and professional resources
Instructor:Â Lauren Meffen MA CCC/SLP, CLT
Lauren Meffen is a speech language pathologist with a passion for working with voice and swallow disorders. She has remained local to Gainesville after receiving her schooling with Bachelors and Masters degrees from the University of Florida. Lauren has worked in a variety of settings including hospital, skilled nursing, home health and has now found her heart belongs in the outpatient setting. Here she can provide a high level of individualized and quality care for each patient and family. Over the years, she has developed a love and specialization in working with the oncology population. She has advanced training in management of lymphedema of the head and neck as a CLT, trismus therapy, muscle tension dysphonia, FEES, stroboscopy, MDTP, RMST and myofascial release techniques. She strongly champions a comprehensive approach toward treating the whole patient, with the involvement of a skilled, multi-disciplinary team.
Program Creators & Device Invention
Creator:
Megan Nosol, M.S.Ed., M.S., PA-S1
Megan is a former medical Speech-Language Pathologist who earned her master’s degree in Speech and Hearing Sciences from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2013. From 2014–2020, she worked in skilled nursing, outpatient rehabilitation, nonprofit, and telepractice settings, with interests in head and neck cancer, neurorehabilitation, and counseling.
With an additional master’s degree in Secondary Education, Megan brings a passion for teaching and mentorship to her courses for SLPs. Her teaching includes the ARK-J Program Trismus Intervention Certification Course, The Evolving Swallow webinar, and Filling in the Gaps: Missing Components of Dysphagia Education, co-taught with Ed Bice, M.A., CCC-SLP.Â
Creator:
Brian Kanapkey, M.A., CCC-SLP
Brian holds a master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology from the University of Louisiana Monroe and has spent 15 years at UNC–Chapel Hill’s Ear, Nose, and Throat Clinic, specializing in voice restoration and swallowing disorders. He provides silicone augmentation of TEP prostheses for oversized tracheoesophageal fistulas when surgical closure is unsafe. His prosthesis design also led to the commercial production of a dual-valved tracheoesophageal voice prosthesis.
Brian has co-authored research articles with ENT physicians who are experts in the area of head and neck cancer, supervised numerous graduate SLP students from UNC Chapel Hill, and has taught the Swallowing Disorders course in the UNC Graduate School Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences for twelve years now and is an adjunct professor at North Carolina Central University.
Device Invention
The homemade ARK-J Stretching Device (ARKJSD) was developed by Brian Kanapkey and Byron Kubik, CCC-SLPs specializing in head and neck cancer, to help patients who could not afford commercial jaw-stretching devices or obtain insurance coverage. These financial barriers often limited access to trismus treatment.Â
Using readily available medical supplies, they designed a device that is easy to make, adjustable to each patient’s needs, and intended to provide comfortable stretching while reducing pressure on the teeth, gums, and jaw joints.
The ARKJSD offers an affordable alternative to stacked tongue depressors. By teaching clinicians how to make this device, we aim to reduce financial barriers and help more patients access individualized trismus treatment.
