LSVT LOUD therapy new to York General

October 25, 2016

Huebert gets help to keep his voice

News-Times/Steve Moseley - Far from taking a nap, Roy Huebert is hard at work belting out the longest, loudest ‘Ahh!’ he can manage. The Parkinson patient and Henderson native now lives at York General Hearthstone where speech pathologist Vicky Czerwinski puts him through this exercise and others to keep his voice strong. A fading voice is common to those with Parkinson’s. Huebert is Czerwinski’s first patient since obtaining her certification in this special therapy.

YORK – Henderson native and Parkinson Disease sufferer Roy Huebert is leading the way as Vicky Czerwinski’s and York General’s first LSVT LOUD therapy patient.

Speech pathologist Czerwinski, who works in the physical therapy department of York General, recently earned certification in the special treatment and is one of just three within a 30-mile radius of York to have done so. The training was obtained through Creighton University.

The cutting-edge therapy, new to York, involves 16 sessions over four weeks with one goal, said Czerwinski, “to increase loudness” in the voices of Parkinson patients like Huebert.

“They lose the ability to sense how loud they are,” she said, “so we work on the sensory (hearing) as well as the motor (voice projection) part.”

Parkinson disease, said Leslie Robinson of York General, “Is a hidden disease. People to don’t want to seek help.”

Czerwinski said the treatment is a lot of work for patients such as Huebert, who is straining for all the volume and longevity he can get from one “Ahh!” while being monitored by the speech pathologist’s computer. Under her direction he repeated the exercise over and over and over again.

Czerwinski often turns the computer screen toward Huebert “so he can see” the results in real time on a graph.

Czerwinski, an Omaha native, received her undergraduate degree at UNL and her master’s at Rockhurst in Kansas City where her thesis was on Parkinson’s.

“My grandma had it,” she explained. “She went through this program and it made a big difference to her.”

Virtually every person (89 percent) with Parkinson disease will have problems with speech that begin early in the process and will diminish their quality of life through conditions such as a soft voice, mumbled speech, monotone speech or a voice that’s most often hoarse.

More than 20 years of research funded by the National Institute of Health has proven LSVT LOUD: improves vocal loudness, improves speech intelligibility, improved facial expression and foster greater self-confidence.

Czerwinski said those suffering with Parkinson or other neurological conditions that erode the ability to speak should first contact their family physician who will in turn make a referral to her if appropriate.

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