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Introduction: Dysphagia and communication changes are common in life-limiting conditions and Speech-Language Pathology (SLP) involvement to facilitate effective communication, eating and drinking contributes to the goals of comprehensive palliative care.

Aim: To examine the existing literature around the role of SLPs in palliative care to define the best practice role for SLPs in this area, identify current services and interventions provided by SLPs to patients with life-limiting conditions, assess for potential gaps between best practice in the literature and everyday SLP practice and opportunities for improvement.

Methods: The methods used were electronic literature searches within MEDLINE, EMBASE and CINAHL, and manual searching. Papers were classified according to type. Meta-analysis was not appropriate due to the nature of the papers, and so a narrative exploration of themes was conducted.

Results …