Speech is a powerful tool that can be quite beneficial at many points in day-to-day life. However, older age may antagonize the ability to use this tool to its top potential and bring about conditions greatly harming the throat and vocal cord area. In these cases, when the going gets tough, Life Care Center of Valparaiso is able to help its residents with speech therapy. Through various programs and exercises, the team works to provide comprehensive care to make sure each resident’s voice is heard as they embark on a positive treatment journey at the center.
While Life Care Center’s speech therapy certainly improves any issues regarding speech itself, treatment also extends far beyond the act of talking. The care facility’s speech therapy can additionally help treat older adults with swallowing and cognitive disorders, dementia, strokes, head and neck cancers, Parkinson’s disease, traumatic brain injuries, or any area that can cause speech and language impairment.
“I think a lot of times when people think of speech therapy, they're thinking about schools or working with children and may not realize the other side of speech therapy on the medical side,” said Speech Language Pathologist Natalie Pearce.
With a wide variety of conditions that directly affect speech or the throat, each patient at Life Care Center is evaluated on a case-by-case basis, regardless of reason for admission. If further treatment for the patient is needed, a personalized plan will soon be in place.
“We have a screening process that I do with everybody who comes into the building, and that helps me determine if I need to do any type of cognitive assessment that’s more in-depth,” said Pearce. “I can tell by the way they're speaking if I need to address anything with their voice. If they come in with a diagnosis for something like swallowing troubles, that's already on my radar. If they're then complaining about trouble swallowing certain things, I usually go through and do a full assessment for swallowing.”
This all-inclusive care is made possible through the magic of Pearce and Life Care Center’s speech therapy team. The group works hard both with each other and the center’s physical and occupational therapists, making a perfect trifecta for quality patient care on a flexible and frequent schedule.
“A real benefit that people see, especially if there's been something traumatic happening such as a stroke, is that therapy is being applied and treated at least five days a week,” Pearce said. “I definitely work really well with my therapy team and I'm really close with our physical therapists and occupational therapists, so there's a lot of crossover between modalities that I'm able to communicate with them all.”
Additionally, Life Care Center residents can expect this almost round-the-clock care to come with a gentle hand. A Valpo native herself, Pearce is able to both work and provide care for members in a community she’s quite fond of, and it means a lot knowing she is able to serve a community that helped her find her path to where she is today.
“It’s pretty special. I was born and raised in Valpo, and I work in a facility that I've grown up seeing my whole life—I even went to high school right down the road,” Pearce said. “There's a lot of times I run into people who know people I know or all of a sudden I find a connection with someone I know who’s in the building. I think it's really cool that I'm able to give back to the community and work with the communities I grew up in as well.”
Working at Life Care Center has then allowed Pearce to further build on that community—when treating a patient, she and the rest of the staff see it as tending to one of their own, becoming an extended family in a way to the patients at the center when working with them during speech therapy. They know dealing with challenging issues that come about in later years can take quite a toll on the residents, so being that extra support system in any way possible is the end goal to make them feel right at home.
“Some of the really rewarding benefits of working with adults in our facility and targeting other areas of speech therapy is being able to create relationships with families and making sure that the continuity of care is where it needs to be for people,” Pearce said. “I've been really happy with the relationships I'm able to create with not only residents but their family members as well.”
To become a part of the Life Care Center of Valparaiso family today and to learn more about the many resources available, please visit the website here.