When speaking or swallowing becomes difficult for you, the speech therapy team at the Great Plains Health Sports & Therapy Center is here to offer diagnostic and therapeutic help. With the guidance of these professionals, you'll understand what's causing your difficulties, and you'll get the help you need to get better.
Communication and swallowing are vital parts of life. Our certified speech and language pathologists do all they can to ensure that our patients are rehabilitated to their highest level of ability.
Who needs speech therapy?
Speech and language difficulties can arise due to hearing loss.
The muscles, joints and nerves that control speech and swallowing can also be damaged by:
- Brain injury
- Cerebral palsy
- Developmental delays
- Parkinson's disease
- Stroke
Our speech therapy team helps people who have been living with speech or swallowing disorders for years, as well as those who have recently developed a problem.
Our certified speech pathology experts are adept at diagnosing speech and swallowing disorders, and the therapies they offer are tailored to help you reach your goals. Together, you and your therapist will develop a treatment plan. And you'll assess that plan together and make adjustments as needed. That approach offers you control over your health and healing. And the results could be dramatic.
Speech pathology specifics
Our speech language pathologists can provide coaching and exercises to help train the muscles you use while you speak to function at an optimal level, and they can help you develop healthy habits so you can protect your vocal cords from stress and damage. Our team might use one of these specialized treatments to help address speech difficulties:
- AAC evaluation and therapy. Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) involves the use of facial expressions, gestures, symbols or pictures, rather than oral speech. During an AAC evaluation, our speech pathologists determine what types of AAC methods work best for you, and they develop treatment plans to help you use AAC even better.
- Aphasia therapy. This form of speech therapy can be used to build up speaking, reading, writing and listening skills. Therapy might also help you understand how to use alternate methods of communication to make your thoughts and wishes known.
- LSVT therapy. The Lee Silverman Voice Treatment (LSVT) is a type of voice therapy made for people with Parkinson's disease and other neurological conditions. Exercises and coaching are used during this therapy to boost speech volume without straining vocal cords.
Swallowing therapy specifics
Our speech therapists can offer exercises to help you coordinate your muscles as you swallow, and they can use training sessions to help you fine-tune your ability to handle different types of foods and fluids. These are a few of the additional tests and treatments we offer:
- Modified barium swallow studies. This is a form of x-ray conducted while you swallow substances of different consistencies and textures. This test can help your therapist pinpoint the source of swallowing difficulties.
- Vital stim therapy. This form of therapy combines electrical stimulation and swallowing exercises to help people with swallowing disorders.
Contact us
For more information about our speech and language program, please contact Great Plains Health Sports & Therapy at 308.568.7456.