Services
Combining years of experience working with the adult population in hospital, rehab, skilled nursing, and in-home settings, allows Robin to treat impairment that may arise as a result of brain injury, degenerative disease, head and neck cancer, and general aging. A holistic approach is taken, combining the understanding of your individual needs and personal goals, with the most up to date research-based methods, to create a program that is uniquely yours.
Swallowing Therapy
Difficulty swallowing (dysphagia) can be both physically and emotionally debilitating. We often take our ability to eat our favorite foods and consume our favorite drinks for granted. Problems with swallowing can arise as a result of brain trauma, neurodegenerative disorders, head and neck cancer (post radiation), and aging. It may cause coughing while eating/drinking, feeling as though food is getting stuck in your throat, pocketing of food within the mouth, taking a long time to finish meals, inability to keep up with nutrition needs resulting in unintentional weight loss, inability to keep up with hydration needs resulting in recurrent UTI’s, and/or recurrent lung infection (aspiration pneumonia).
Many times, difficulty swallowing can be well-managed through the implementation of safe swallow strategies and establishing of an individualized exercise program. In some cases, modification to the food and/or liquid consistencies may also be indicated. Whatever the case, the goal of treatment is to help you to return to enjoying the foods and drinks that you love with the people that you love.
Speech Therapy
Those experiencing difficulty with their speech may be challenging to understand and unable to speak clearly. Primary disorders impacting speech clarity in adults include dysarthria and apraxia. Speech may sound slurred or garbled, leading to feelings of frustration for both the speaker and their communication partner. In these instances, the speaker knows exactly what they want to say but are unable to clearly express it.
By looking at the various components needed for clear speech production—respiratory support, voicing, resonance, and articulation—our goal is to provide you with the training and individualized strategies needed in order to speak clearly and confidently again.
Language Therapy
Aphasia, the clinical term for language impairment, is an acquired disorder that occurs as a result of damage or degeneration, in most cases, to the left side of the brain. There are four primary areas of language that can be impacted. These include spoken expression, comprehension or understanding, reading, and writing.
There are different types of aphasia, all with their own unique characteristics. Challenges may range from having difficulty coming up with the right word to say (anomia) to requiring extra time to understand what others are saying. Difficulty writing in cohesive sentences and challenges understanding written content (news article, text messages, emails, etc) may also occur.
Because of the vast differences in language impairment, treatment is tailored to meet your individual communication needs. We build on your strengths and provide a person-centered treatment approach in order to achieve your treatment goals.
Cognitive Therapy
Impaired cognition impacts our ability to communicate and interact with the word around us. It most commonly occurs as a result of traumatic brain injury (TBI), brain tumors, stroke (CVA), and dementia (including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease). The areas of cognition that we target include attention, memory, executive functions, problem solving, and reasoning.
Impaired cognitive skills may result in inability to effectively communicate routine information, difficulty planning for and performing daily tasks (cooking meals, remembering dr appointments, paying bills, taking medication), difficulty with concepts related to time and money, and/or difficulty changing routine or learning new things. Loved ones may notice their family member repeating the same stories, asking the same questions, misunderstanding humor, and forgetting familiar names.
Whether our goals are restorative or compensatory, a person-centered approach is taken when developing an individualized treatment program.
SPEAK OUT!® is a clinically-proven therapy program developed by the Parkinson’s Voice Project to help individuals with Parkinson’s disease regain and maintain their speech and communication skills. This is a structured program that is completed in 12 individual speech therapy sessions over the course of 4 weeks. Together, the patient and speech-language pathologist complete speech, voice, and cognitive exercise using a specialized workbook provided by Parkinson’s Voice Project.