Speech Therapy at Home
Speech and language therapy gives life-changing treatment, support, and care for adults with relevant difficulties. Such as, communicating, eating, drinking or swallowing. Also, they may have cognitive and memory impairments. Certainly, our highly experienced speech therapists work with your physician to make an individualized care plan and meet your specific needs.
Their expertise and services include, but are not limited to:
Speech Services
- Articulation
- Voice
- Resonance
Language Services
- Word-finding
- Increasing sentence length
- Comprehension
- Pragmatics
- Reading
- Writing
Alternative ways of Communication
- Tablet/Smartphone
- Computer
- Dedicated communication devices
- Eye gaze/non-hand switches for communication devices
- Low-tech picture communication systems
Swallowing Services
- Objective swallow studies (Modified Barium Swallow or FEES)
- Bedside swallow evaluation
- Postures/positioning for increased swallow function
- Modified texture diets
- Thermal/tactile and swallow-related oral motor exercises
Cognitive-Communicative Services
- Memory
- Problem-solving
- Planning and initiation
- Attention
Common diagnosis indicating a need for speech therapy may include:
- Stroke
- Dysphagia
- Alzheimer’s or Dementia
- Brain Injuries
Benefits of in-home speech therapy
People feel most comfortable in their homes, where everything they need is nearby. Furthermore, therapy will be less disruptive for medication, food or bathroom breaks.
Can effective speech therapy be provided at home?
Whether the need for speech therapy arises from an illness, disease, or accident, speech-language pathologists can give most services at home. Many people in recovery have spent weeks or months in hospitals and are thrilled to return home. Others may not have been hospitalized but are homebound, getting all care in their residence. It is still possible to get high quality, evidence-based speech-language, swallowing or cognitive-communicative therapy. Also, there are actually benefits to receiving therapy at home.
Informed Caregivers
In the home, a speech pathologist often encounters family members or professional caregivers. They can look over therapy and get education or counseling about the techniques implemented by the therapist. Thus, continuity of care improves when the speech pathologist is not present. For instance, family members or professional caregivers are with patients much more often than the visiting therapists. Knowledgeable caregivers can encourage patients to use techniques throughout the week. This extends the therapeutic effect by increasing practice time and intensity. Recent research suggests these parameters improve patient outcomes. Additionally, naturalistic home environments support generalization of techniques to everyday situations, not keeping learned behaviors to just the speech pathologist or clinic.
Personally Relevant Materials
Another benefit of in-home speech therapy is that the patient’s own items can be used in therapy. For example, in language or memory therapy family pictures or photo albums can be adapted as stimulus materials. In swallowing therapy, the speech pathologist can use the patient’s actual silverware. This can increase the accuracy of instructions and the safety of the patient during swallowing. For instance, a patient’s spoon may be twice the size of a plastic spoon commonly used in outpatient rehabilitation.
Less Stress and Energy Expenditure
Patients experience fatigue with illness or during recovery. In-home speech therapy reduces the trouble on the patient for travel time and physical activity. Thus, saving energy to put into a meaningful therapy session instead. Consequently, this improves patient’s stamina and allows a speech-language pathologist to see a patient at his or her best.
There are numerous reasons why people choose to have rehabilitation at home. An experienced speech-language pathologist can provide quality therapy in that environment and actually harness the benefits of in-home speech therapy to enhance a patient’s experience within individual therapy sessions and overall outcomes.
Certainly, talk to your doctor about in-home speech therapy, and see if it’s right for you. If so – Request a referral to Superior Home Health… You won’t regret it!