**2.1 Mary's journey**

Associate professor Mary Hägg started her professional life as a hospital dentist where she became fascinated with the swallowing problems that some of her patients presented with. In Sweden, the remit of the dentist is wider than in some other countries and can encompass more orofacial issues than just teeth and gums. The more she worked with patients with swallowing difficulties some after stroke the more fascinated she became. She worked with exercises to strengthen the delinquent muscles and became more and more renowned for her focus on dysphagia.

In 1990, Mary founded a specialist multi-disciplinary unit within the ENT department of a Swedish teaching hospital and has managed it since its inception. The purpose of this speech and the swallowing unit is to encourage and ensure cooperation across a range of clinical specialties to deliver improved patient outcomes.

In 1997 she was awarded a stipend to visit and study the subject more deeply with Dr. Castillo Morales, Cordoba, Argentina, and in 2001 with Professor Bronwyn Jones, Dept. of Radiology, The Johns Hopkins Hospital, medical center in Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

**Figure 1.** *The IQoro neuromuscular training device.*

#### *Introducing IQoro: A Clinically Effective Oral Neuromuscular Treatment for Dysphagia DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101144*

As she treated more and more patients that were referred to her, she came to two conclusions: firstly, those swallowing difficulties manifest themselves as a muscular deficiency, but usually have a neurological dysfunction at the root; and secondly, that there were few effective treatment options. In many cases, patients received only compensatory care which allowed them to function with their disability, but with no active plan to address the underlying problem.

To address the first issue Mary decided that she must study to be a doctor in order to understand the neurology that lies behind dysphagia. It is clear that the day before a patient has a stroke that his or her swallowing can be fine and that it is the neurological event that causes the immediate onset of dysphagia. Mary's Ph.D. thesis "Sensory-motor brain plasticity in stroke patients with dysphagia. A methodological study on investigation and treatment" 2007, used massage to restore muscular strength by stimulating brain activity. Mary invented and had manufactured a validated scientific instrument to measure the strength of certain components in the swallowing chain by measuring resistance in the pharyngeal sling or buccinator mechanism [18, 19]. She also developed and validated orofacial motor test methodologies [20].

The second problem, the lack of suitable treatments [21, 22] that could be easily and widely used even by the patients themselves was a harder task. Her journey took her through working with all types of dysphagia in people from premature babies through children, adults, and to end-of-life. The journey resulted in her inventing, developing, and patenting the revolutionary IQoro device that is now, July 2021, used by over 50,000 people in many countries.
